awiAAU^.  .>.A 


Qlive-Percival 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


/    4J  O 


HIEROGLYPHICS 


A  NOTE  UPON  EC  ST  AST  IN  LITERATURE 


Br 
ARTHUR   MA  CHEN 


1     J  »       i 

1  i     I      *         ^    * 

Q  i       ^  •         ■»       i  i 


J    *  > 


»»„      •       »»^ 


J  »    n  ■  •     9  i 


A^£/r   YORK 

MITCHELL    KENNERLEY 

MCMXIII 


•  « 

•  •  • 


«    «     ■ 
«    •  •  • 


•  t  • 


•  ••• 


PREFATORT  NOTE 

IT  was  m^  privilege,  many  years  ago,  to 
make  the  acquaintance  of  the  obscure 
literary  hermit  whose  talk  I  have  tried 
to  reproduce  in  the  pages  that  follow.  Our 
first  meeting  was  one  of  those  chance  affairs  that 
now  and  then  mitigate  the  loneliness  of  the 
London  streets,  and  a  second  hazard  led  to  the 
discovery  that  we  had  many  interests  in  com- 
mon. I  think  that  the  Hermit  (as  I  shall  call 
him)  had  begun  to  find  the  perpetual  solitude 
of  his  years  a  growing  terror,  and  he  was  not 
sorry  to  have  a  listener  ;  at  first,  indeed,  he 
talked  almost  with  the  joy  of  a  child,  or  rather 
of  a  prisoner  who  has  escaped  from  the  house  of 
silence,  but  as  he  chose  subjects  which  have 
always  interested  me  intensely,  he  gave  as 
much  pleasure  as  he  received,  and  I  became  an 
assiduous  visitor  of  his  cell. 

He  had  found  an  odd  retreat.  He  avoided 
personalities,  and  had  a  happy  knack  of  forgetting 
any  that  I  vouchsafed  on  my  side  (he  forgot 
my  name  three  times  on  the  first  evening  that 


"ENGLISH 


8  Hieroglyphics 

we  spent  together,  and  succeeded  in  repeating 
this  feat  over  and  over  again  since  then),  and  I 
never  gathered  much  of  his  past  history.  But  I 
believe  that  "  something  had  happened  "  many 
years  before,  in  the  prehistoric  age  of  the 
'seventies.  There  had  been  a  break  of  some 
sort  in  the  man's  Uf  e  when  he  was  quite  young  ; 
and  so  he  had  left  the  world  and  gone  to  Barns- 
bury,  an  almost  mythical  region  lying  between 
Pentonville  and  the  Caledonian  Road.  Here, 
in  the  most  retired  street  of  that  retired 
quarter,  he  occupied  two  rooms  on  the  ground 
floor  of  a  big,  mouldy  house,  standing  apart 
from  the  street  and  sheltered  by  gaunt-grown 
trees  and  ancient  shrubs ;  and  just  beside  the 
dim  and  dusty  window  of  the  sitting-room  a 
laburnum  had  cast  a  green  stain  on  the  decaying 
wall.  The  laburnum  had  grown  wild,  like  all 
the  trees  and  shrubs,  and  some  of  its  black, 
straggling  boughs  brushed  the  pane,  and  of 
dark,  windy  nights  while  we  sat  together  and 
talked  of  art  and  life  we  would  be  startled  by 
the  sudden  violence  with  which  those  branches 
beat  angrily  upon  the  glass. 

The  room  seemed  always  dark.  I  suppose 
that  the  house  had  been  built  in  the  early 
eighteenth  century,  and  had  been  altered  and 
added  to  at  various  periods,  with  a  final  "  doing 
up  "  for  the  comparative  luxury  of  someone 


Prefatory  Note  9 

in  the  'tens  or  'twenties ;  there  were,  I  think, 
twenty  rooms  in  it,  and  my  friend  used  to 
declare  that  when  a  new  servant  came  she  spent 
many  months  in  finding  her  way  in  the  com- 
pHcated  maze  of  stairs  and  passages,  and  that 
the  landlady  even  was  now  and  then  at  fault. 
But  the  room  in  which  we  sat  was  hung  with 
flock  paper,  of  a  deep  and  heavy  crimson  colour, 
and  even  on  bright  summer  evenings  the 
crimson  looked  almost  black,  and  seemed  to  cast 
a  shadow  into  the  room.  Often  we  sat  there 
till  the  veritable  darkness  came,  and  each  could 
scarcely  see  the  white  of  the  other's  face, 
and  then  my  friend  would  light  two  lonely 
candles  on  the  mantelpiece,  or  if  he  wished  to 
read  he  set  one  on  a  table  beside  him  ;  and 
when  the  candles  were  lighted  I  thought  that 
the  gloom  grew  more  intense,  and  looking 
through  the  uncurtained  window  one  could 
not  see  even  the  friendly  twinkle  of  the  gas- 
lamp  in  the  street,  but  only  the  vague  growth 
of  the  laburnum,  and  the  tangle  of  boughs 
beyond. 

It  was  a  large  room  and  gave  me  always  a 
sense  of  empty  space.  Against  one  wall  stood 
a  heavy  bookcase,  with  glass  doors,  solid  and  of 
dark  mahogany,  but  made  in  the  intermediate 
period  that  came  between  Chippendale  and 
the  modern  school  of  machine-turned  rubbish. 


lo  Hieroglyphics 

In  the  duskiest  corner  of  the  room  there  was 
a  secretaire  of  better  workmanship,  and  two 
small  tables  and  three  gaunt  chairs  made  up 
the  furnishing.  The  Hermit  would  sometimes 
pace  up  and  down  in  the  void  centre  of  the 
room  as  he  talked,  and  if  I  chanced  to  be 
sitting  by  the  window  his  shape  would  almost 
disappear  as  he  neared  the  secretaire  on  his 
march,  and  I  heard  the  voice,  and  used  to 
wonder  for  a  moment  whether  the  man  had  not 
vanished  for  ever,  having  been  resolved  into  the 
shadows  about  him. 

I  have  spent  many  evenings  in  that  old 
mouldering  room,  where,  when  we  were  silent 
/  for  an  instant,  the  inanimate  matter  about 
us  found  a  voice,  and  the  decaying  beams 
murmured  together,  and  a  vague  sound  might 
come  from  the  cellars  underneath.  And  it  always 
seemed  to  me  as  if  the  crypt-like  odour  of  the 
cellar  rose  also  into  the  room,  mingling  with  a 
faint  suggestion  of  incense,  though  I  am  sure 
that  my  friend  never  burned  it.  Here  then, 
with  such  surroundings  as  I  have  indicated, 
we  held  our  sessions  and  talked  freely  and  with 
enjoyment  of  many  curious  things,  which, 
as  the  Hermit  would  say,  had  the  huge  merit 
of  interesting  no  one  but  ourselves. 

He  would  sometimes,  whimsically,  compare 
himself  to  Coleridge,  and  I  think  that  he  often 


Prefatory  Note  n 

deliberately  talked  in  S.  T.  C.'s  manner  with 
delight  in  the  joke.  For  I  need  hardly  say 
that  the  comparison  was  not  in  any  way  a 
serious  one  ;  he  had  a  veneration  for  Coleridge's 
achievement,  with  a  still  greater  veneration 
for  that  which  Coleridge  might  have  achieved, 
which  would  have  caused  him  to  regard  any 
such  comparison,  seriously  entertained,  as  un- 
speakably ludicrous.  Still,  he  hked  to  regard 
himself  as  a  very  humble  disciple  in  Coleridge's 
school ;  he  was  fond,  as  I  have  said,  of  imitating 
his  master's  manner  as  well  as  he  could,  and  I 
think  that  he  cherished,  in  the  fashion  of  S.  T.  C, 
the  notion  that  he  had  a  "  system,"  an  esoteric 
philosophy  of  things.  He  sought  for  a  key  that 
would  open,  and  a  lamp  that  would  enlighten 
all  the  dark  treasure-houses  of  the  Universe, 
and  sometimes  he  believed  that  he  held  both  the 
Key  and  the  Lamp  in  his  hands. 

It  is  a  confession  of  mysticism,  but  I  incline 
to  think  that  he  was  right  in  this  belief.  I 
recall  the  presence  of  that  hollow,  echoing 
room,  the  atmosphere  with  its  subtle  suggestion 
of  incense  sweetening  the  dank  odours  of  the 
cellar,  and  the  tone  of  the  voice  speaking  to  me, 
and  I  believe  that  once  or  twice  we  both  saw 
visions,  and  some  glimpse  at  least  of  certain 
eternal,  ineffable  Shapes.  But  these  matters, 
the  more  esoteric  doctrines  of  the  "  system," 


1 2  Hieroglyphics 

have  entered  hardly  or  not  at  all  into  the  very 
imperfect  and  fragmentary  notes  that  I  have 
made  of  his  conversations  on  literature. 

I  should  scarcely  be  justified  in  calling  him  a 
hterary  monomaniac.  But  it  is  true  that  Art  in 
general  and  the  art  of  literature  in  particular 
had  for  him  a  very  high  significance  and  interest ; 
and  he  was  always  ready  to  defend  the  thesis 
that,  all  the  arts  being  glorious,  the  literary 
art  was  the  most  glorious  and  wonderful  of  all. 
He  reverenced  music,  but  he  was  firm  in  main- 
taining that  in  perfect  lyrical  poetry  there  is  the 
subtlest  and  most  beautiful  melody  in  the 
world. 

I  can  scarcely  say  whether  he  wrote  much 
himself.  He  would  speak  of  stories  on  which 
he  was  engaged,  but  I  have  never  seen  his 
name  on  pubHshers'  Hsts,  and  I  do  not  think  that 
he  had  adopted  a  pseudonym.  One  evening,  I 
remember,  I  came  in  a  little  before  my  accus- 
tomed time,  and  in  the  shadowy  corner  of 
the  room  a  drawer  in  the  secretaire  was  open, 
and  I  thought  that  it  looked  full  of  neat  manu- 
scripts. But  I  never  spoke  to  him  about  his 
literary  work  ;  and  I  noticed  that  he  did  not 
much  care  to  talk  of  literature  from  the  com- 
mercial standpoint. 

It  is  perhaps  needless  to  say  that  I  consulted 
my  friend  before  publishing  these  notes  of  his 


Prefatory  Note  13 

conversations.      I    had    been    forced    to    leave 
London  for  some  months,  and  I  wrote  to  him 
from    the    country,    requesting   his    permission 
to  give  to  the  world  (if  the  world  would  have 
them)  those  judgments  on  books  which  I  had 
listened   to   in   Barnsbury.      His   reply   allowed 
me  to  take  my  own  way,  "  with  all  my  heart, 
so  long  as  you  make  me  sufficiently  apocryphal. 
I  am  not  going  to  compete  with  '  real '  critics 
whose  names  are  printed  in  the  papers ;    but  if 
you  can  maintain  the  incognito  and  allow  your 
readers   (supposing   their   existence)    to   believe 
that  I  am  a  mere  figment  of  your  brain,  you 
can  print  my  obiter  dicta  '  with  ease  of  body  and 
rest  of  reins.'    Here  is  a  suggestion  for  a  title  : 
what  do  you  say  to  '  Boswell  in  Barnsbury  '  ? 
But  I  really  had  no  notion  that  you  were  taking 
notes    all    the    time.      Remember :     keep    the 
secret,  and  the  secrets." 

I  regarded  this  as  a  very  liberal  license,  and  I 
have  tried  to  set  in  the  best  order  I  could 
compass  the  "  system  "  so  far  as  it  relates  to 
letters.  I  do  not  pretend  that  I  am  a  verbatim 
reporter,  for  I  had  to  trust  to  my  memory, 
and  though  I  tried  to  arrange  my  notes  at  the 
time,  I  fear  I  have  fallen  here  and  there  into 
confusion.  Still,  I  think  that  the  six  chapters 
which  follow  will  seem  fairly  consecutive  in 
their    argument    and    arrangement,    and    the 


14  Hieroglyphics 

"  Appendix  " — a  confession  of  failure — is,  in 
reality,  the  result  of  the  "  cyclical  mode  of 
discoursing,"  in  which  the  Hermit  jocularly 
professed  to  follow  Coleridge. 

Perhaps  indeed  Coleridge  was  deceived, 
and  my  dear  friend  with  him,  in  the  hope  of 
real  essential  knowledge  ;  but  even  so,  these 
fragments  which  I  propose  are  evidence  that 
the    latter    earnestly    desired    the    truth    and 

sought  it. 

A.  M. 


I 

Do  you  know  that  just  before  you  came  in. 
I  found  something  highly  significant  in 
the  evening  paper  ?  I  am  afraid  from  your  ex- 
pression that  you  rather  undervalue  the  influence 
of  the  press ;  indeed,  I  remember  one  day 
when  we  were  out  together  you  swore  at  an 
inoffensive  boy  who  tried  to  allure  us  with  news 
of  all  the  winners.  I  think  I  pointed  out  at  the 
time  that  even  horse-racing  and  an  interest  in 
*'  events  "  are  preferable  to  stagnation,  and  that 
there  is  something  august  in  the  universal 
human  passion  for  gambling.  And,  after  all,  the 
office-boy  who  "  puts  on "  half  a  crown  is 
really  only  an  example  of  the  love  of  man  for 
the  unknown  ;  the  half-crown  is  a  venture  into 
mystery,  with  that  due  flavour  of  commercialism 
which  we  in  England  add  to  most  of  our  interests. 
But  you  see,  don't  you  ?  that  gambling,  even 
under  its  most  sordid  aspects,  is  not  altogether 
sordid  ;  it's  the  mystery,  the  uncertainty,  the 
hours  of  "  strange  surmise  "  that  the  smallest  bet 
gives  to  the  bettor,  that  make  the  real  delight 

15 


1 6  Hieroglyphics 

of  betting.  When,  the  office-boy  wins  and  gets 
ten  shiUings  for  the  risk  of  his  two-and-six,  his 
delight  is  not  by  any  means  pure  love  of  gain, 
it  is  distinguished  by  a  very  marked  line  from 
the  constantly  repeated  joys  of  the  grocer,  who 
is  always  buying  delicious  tea  at  ninepence  and 
selling  it  at  one-and-six.  Here  you  have  com- 
mercialism in  its  simplest  form ;  but  our 
office-boy,  though  he  likes  the  money  well 
enough,  stands  on  a  much  higher  plane.  For  the 
moment  he  is  the  man  who  has  succeeded  in 
solving  the  enigma  of  the  Sphinx,  in  discovering 
the  unknown  continent,  in  reading  the  cypher, 
i  in  guessing  at  the  song  the  Sirens  sang,  in 
unveiling  the  hidden  treasure  that  the  buc- 
caneers buried  on  the  lonely  shore  ;  he  has 
ventured  successfully  into  the  dim  region  of 
surmises.  And  when  he  loses,  there  are  always 
consolations ;  the  Indies  have  not  been  dis- 
covered on  this  voyage,  certainly,  but  there 
have  been  wonders  on  the  way,  he  has  enjoyed 
many  hours  of  delicious  expectation.  The  proof 
that  he  likes  the  sport,  even  when  he  loses,  is 
that  he  invariably  takes  the  first  opportunity 
of  venturing  again  in  the  same  manner.  And, 
by  the  way,  perhaps  I  was  a  little  severe  just  now 
on  trade,  and  especially  on  the  grocer's  sugary 
and  soapy  enterprise.  Perhaps  if  we  were  to  look 
with  a  rather  finer  vision  into  the  commercial 


Hieroglyphics  1 7 

spirit,  we  might  find  that  it  is  not  wholly  com- 
mercial, not  altogether  sordid.  Of  course  if  the 
grocer  opens  his  shop  with  a  certainty,  mathe- 
matical or  almost  mathematical,  that  the  public 
will  buy  his  wares,  he  is  a  wicked  fellow  ;  he  is 
gambHng  with  loaded  dice,  betting  against  a 
horse  that  he  knows  is  to  be  made  "  all  right," 
playing  cards  with  honours  up  his  sleeve,  and 
I  am  sure  that  if  this  be  his  enterprise,  it 
will  always  meet  with  our  sternest  disapproval. 
Casanova  died  towards  the  close  of  the  last 
century,  and  since  then  card-sharping  has 
become  impossible  to  a  man  of  taste.  But 
seriously,  I  suspect  that  a  good  deal  of  the  allure- 
ment that  trade  possesses  for  so  many  of  us  is  the 
risk  which  it  almost  always  implies,  and  risk  means 
uncertainty,  and  uncertainty  connotes  the  un- 
known. So  you  see  our  despised  grocer  turns 
out,  after  all,  to  be  of  the  kin  of  Columbus,  of 
the  treasure-seekers,  and  mystery-mongers,  and 
delvers  after  hidden  things  spiritual  and  material. 
I  suppose  we  have  here  the  real  explanation  of 
the  human  trading  passion,  and  the  solution  of 
a  problem  that  has  often  puzzled  me.  The 
problem  I  mean  is  this :  How  does  it  happen  that 
the  EngUsh  are  both  the  greatest  poets  and  the 
greatest  tradesmen  of  the  modern  world  ? 
Superficially,  it  seems  that  keeping  shops  and 
making  poetry  are  incompatibles,  and  Words- 


1 8  Hieroglyphics 

worth  and  Coleridge,  Keats  and  Shelley, 
Tennyson  and  Poe,  should  have  come  from 
Provence  or  Sicily,  from  the  "  unpractical," 
uncommercial  Latin  races.  But  if  vi?e  trace 
back  the  trading  instinct  to  that  love  of  a  risk — 
or  in  other  words  to  the  desire  for  the  unknown 
— the  antinomy  disappears,  and  it  will  become 
perfectly  natural  that  the  race  which  has  gone 
to  the  world's  end  with  its  merchandise,  has 
penetrated  so  gloriously  into  the  further  regions 
of  poetry. 

But  that  reminds  me  of  what  I  was  saying 
just  after  you  had  lit  your  pipe.  I  think  I 
remarked  that  I  had  seen  something  of  very  high 
significance  in  the  evening  paper,  and  the  glare  of 
disgust  with  which  you  greeted  my  observation 
constituted  an  interruption,  and  an  interruption 
that  had  to  be  dealt  with.  Now  again  you  seem 
to  hint  at  doubt  with  your  eyebrows  ;  you  would 
say,  perhaps,  that  I  have  not  made  out  a  very 
convincing  case  for  journalism  ?  But  you  must 
remember  that  my  mental  process  resembles 
that  of  Coleridge  ;  you  called  on  the  Seer  at 
eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  (if  young  and 
imprudent)  asked  him  a  question.  And  at  the 
waning  of  the  light  Coleridge  was  still  diligently 
engaged  in  answering  your  question  for  you, 
having  talked  without  intermission  all  the 
summer  day.    A  "  cyclical  mode  of  discoursing  " 


Hieroglyphics  1 9 

the  pious  Henry  Nelson  Coleridge  called  it, 
and  he  deals  faithfully  with  certain  persons  who 
complained  "  that  they  could  get  no  answer  to 
a  question  from  Coleridge."  And  you  will 
please  to  remember  this  when  you  think  that  I 
am  "  wandering  " — a  vice  of  which  Coleridge 
also  was  accused.  To-night,  for  example,  on 
the  evening  paper  being  mentioned,  your  face 
expressed  disgust  and  contempt,  which  I 
diagnosed  (and  rightly,  I  beheve  ?  )  as  a  tribute 
to  the  enormous  interest  taken  by  the  editors 
of  these  agreeable  journals  in  the  very  latest 
sporting  news ;  an  interest  which  allows  but 
Httle  space  for  the  discussion  of  pure  literature. 
Hence  my  remarks  on  the  gambling-spirit  ; 
and  now  I  hope  you  will  at  least  assume  a  thrill 
of  interest  when  the  boy  bawls  in  your  ear  "  All 
the  winners  and  S.  P."  It  is  possible  you  may 
be  thinking  of  Ulysses  or  of  Keats  at  the  moment, 
and  the  interruption  may  annoy  you,  but  it 
will  do  so  no  longer  when  you  reflect  that  a 
burning  anxiety  as  to  the  rtSnning  of  Bolter  is 
for  many  thousands  the  symbol — and  the  only 
possible  symbol — of  the  Doom  of  Troy  and  the 
wandering  fields  of  foam,  and  the  Isle  of 
Calypso,  and  the  "  wild  surmise  "  of  Pizarro 
and  all  his  men. 

But  here  is  the  evening  paper  in  question. 
Yes,  the  colour  is,  perhaps,  a  little  sickly.     A 


20  Hieroglyphics 

kind  of  pinky  green,  it  seems,  doesn't  it  ?  But 
it  forced  itself  on  my  notice  in  the  most  extra- 
ordinary manner,  and  I  expect  you  will  have  to 
admit,  when  you  have  heard  the  story,  that  some 
Powers  were  at  work.  Well,  I  was  walking  up 
and  down  the  room,  just  as  it  was  getting  dusk, 
and  every  now  and  then  I  stopped  and  looked 
out  of  the  window.  Yes,  I  was  making  phrases 
as  usual,  and  thinking  of  a  new  story  in  the 
middle  of  the  old  one  :  hence  the  quarter-deck 
exercise.  I  dare  say  you  have  remarked  that  I 
do  not  keep  my  window  in  a  very  brilliant  con- 
dition, and  the  air  this  evening,  you  will  remem- 
ber, was  rather  misty — October,  I  always  think, 
wears  a  peculiar  dim  grace  in  Barnsbury — so  I 
hope  you  will  not  find  my  impressions  too 
incredible.  I  was  staring,  then,  out  of  the 
window,  when  to  my  vast  astonishment  a  great 
pale  bird  seemed  suddenly  to  shoot  up  into 
the  air  from  the  road,  and  to  flutter  into  the 
garden,  where  it  became  entangled  in  that 
sapless  old  laburnum  that  weeps  green  tears 
upon  the  wall.  I  saw,  as  I  thought,  the  beating 
and  fluttering  of  wings,  and  I  ran  out,  imagining 
that  I  was  to  secure  a  strange  companion  for 
my  solitude.  It  was  the  evening  paper,  not  a 
bird,  and  I  saw  at  once  that  it  would  be  impious 
to  let  it  flutter  there  unread,  so  I  secured  it  and 
brought  it  in,  meditating  the  adventure,  and 


Hieroglyphics  2 1 

wondering  what  strange  message  was  thus  borne 
to  my  eyes.  So  I  went  through  its  columns 
patiently,  even  to  the  leaderettes,  and  I  will  do 
myself  the  justice  to  say  that  I  at  once  recognised 
the  communication  that  was  addressed  to  me 
in  this  singular  and  even  I  may  say  Arabian 
fashion.  It  was  a  short  comment  upon  some 
agitation  that  is  now  appealing  rather  strongly 
to  Progressive  leaders ;  but  the  subject-matter 
is  of  no  consequence,  since  the  significance  lies 
in  the  last  sentence.  Here  it  is  :  "  We  are  glad 
to  hear  that  extensive  arrangements  have  been 
made  for  the  dissemination  of  literature." 

You  don't  see  the  immense  importance  of 
that  ?  You  surprise  me.  Let  us  go  into  it, 
then.  I  told  you  I  was  not  very  precise  as  to 
the  exact  scope  of  the  agitation  alluded  to — it 
may  be  a  question  of  a  heavy  tax  on  persons 
who  will  say  "  lady  "  instead  of  "  lydy,"  it  may 
be  an  affair  of  restricting  the  franchise  to  citizens 
thoroughly  ignorant  of  history ;  it  doesn't 
matter — but  here  are  men  who  wish  some 
political  change  to  be  effected,  and  these  men 
are  issuing  printed  matter,  the  purpose  of  which 
is  to  convince  others  of  the  righteousness  of  this 
particular  "  program."  And  this  printed  matter 
is  called  "  literature."  You  know  the  sort  of 
thing  indicated.  It  may  be  a  series  of  arguments, 
simple  and  fallacious,  it  may  be  in  dialogue,  it 


22  Hieroglyphics 

may  be  in  story  form,  it  may  assume  the  guise 
of  parody,  it  may  be  a  brief  history.  And  now 
what  I  want  to  know  is  this  :  here  we  have  a  vast 
body  of  thought,  clothed  in  words,  ranging 
from  the  agreeable  leaflets  that  we  have  been 
speaking  of  up  to — let  us  say — the  Odyssey,  and 
all  this  mass  is  known  as  literature  :  what  is  to 
be  our  criterion,  our  means  of  distinguishing 
between  the  two  extremes  I  have  mentioned 
and  all  the  innumerable  links  between  them  ? 
Is  the  whole  mass  literature  in  the  true  sense  of 
the  word  ?  If  not,  with  what  instrument,  by 
what  rule  are  we  to  divide  the  true  from  the 
false,  to  judge  exactly  in  the  case  of  any  particu- 
lar book  whether  it  is  literature  or  not  ?  Of 
course  you  may  say  that  the  question  is  rather 
verbal  than  real ;  that  "  literature  "  is  a  general 
term  conveniently  applied  to  anything  in  print, 
and  that  in  practice  everybody  knows  the 
difference  between  a  political  pamphlet  and  the 
Odyssey.  I  very  much  doubt  whether  people 
do  understand  precisely  the  distinction  between 
the  two,  but  for  the  avoidance  of  verbal  con- 
fusion I  suggest  that  when  we  mean  literature 
in  its  highest  sense  we  shall  say  (for  the  present 
at  all  events),  "  fine  literature " ;  and  the 
question  will  be,  then :  What  is  it  that  differ- 
entiates fine  literature  from  a  number  of 
grammatical,  or  partly  grammatical,  sentences 


Hieroglyphics  23 

arranged  in  a  more  or  less  logical  order  ?  Why 
is  the  Odyssey  to  come  in,  why  is  the  "  literature" 
of  our  evening  paper  to  be  kept  out  ?  And 
again,  to  put  the  question  in  a  more  subtle 
form  :  To  which  class  do  the  works  of  Jane 
Austen  belong  ?  Is  Pride  and.  Prejudice  to 
stand  on  the  Odyssey  shelf,  or  to  lie  in  the 
pamphlet  drawer  ?  Where  is  Pope's  place  ? 
Is  he  to  be  set  in  the  class  of  Keats  ?  If  not, 
for  what  reason  ?  What  is  the  rank  of  Dickens, 
of  Thackeray,  of  George  Eliot,  of  Hawthorne  ? 
and,  in  a  word,  how  are  we  to  sort  out,  as  it  were, 
this  huge  multitude  of  names,  giving  to  each  one 
his  proper  rank  and  station  ? 

I  am  glad  it  strikes  you  as  a  big  question  :  to 
me  it  seems  the  question,  the  question  which 
covers  the  final  dogma  of  literary  criticism.  Of 
course  after  we  have  answered  this  prerogative 
riddle  there  will  be  other  questions,  almost 
without  end,  classes,  and  sub-classes  of  infinite 
analysis.  But  this  will  be  detail ;  while  the 
question  I  have  propounded  is  the  question  of 
first  principles  ;  it  marks  the  parting  of  two 
ways,  and  in  a  manner  it  asks  itself  not  only  of 
literature,  but  of  life,  but  of  philosophy,  but  of 
religion.  What  is  the  line,  then  ;  the  mark  of 
division  which  is  to  separate  spoken,  or  written, 
or  printed  thought  into  two  great  genera  ? 

Well,  as  you  may  have  guessed,  I  have  my 


< 


24  Hieroglyphics 

solution,  and  I  like  it  none  the  less  because  the 
word  of  the  enigma  seems  to  me  actually  but  a 
single  word.  Yes,  for  me  the  answer  comes  with 
the  one  word.  Ecstasy.  If  ecstasy  be  present, 
then  I  say  there  is  fine  literature,  if  it  be  absent, 
then,  in  spite  of  all  the  cleverness,  all  the 
talents,  all  the  workmanship  and  observation 
and  dexterity  you  may  show  me,  then,  I  think, 
we  have  a  product  (possibly  a  very  interesting 
one)  which  is  not  fine  literature. 

Of  course  you  will  allow  me  to  contradict 
myself,  or  rather,  to  amplify  myself  before  we 
begin  to  discuss  the  matter  fully.  I  said  my 
answer  was  the  word,  ecstasy  ;  I  still  say  so, 
but  I  may  remark  that  I  have  chosen  this  word 
as  the  representative  of  many.  Substitute,  if  you 
like,  rapture,  beauty,  adoration,  wonder,  awe, 
mystery,  sense  of  the  unknown,  desire  for  the 
unknown.  All  and  each  will  convey  what  I 
mean  ;  for  some  particular  case  one  term  may 
be  more  appropriate  than  another,  but  in  every 
case  there  will  be  that  withdrawal  from  the 
common  life  and  the  common  consciousness 
which  justifies  my  choice  of  "  ecstasy  "  as  the 
best  symbol  of  my  meaning.  I  claim,  then,  that 
here  we  have  the  touchstone  which  will  infallibly 
separate  the  higher  from  the  lower  in  literature, 
which  will  range  the  innumerable  multitude  of 
books   in    two   great    divisions,    which    can    be 


Hieroglyphics  2  5 

applied  with  equal  justice  to  a  Greek  drama,  an 
eighteenth-century  novelist,  and  a  modern  poet, 
to  an  epic  in  twelve  books,  and  to  a  lyric  in 
twelve  lines.  I  will  convince  you  of  my  belief 
in  my  own  nostrum  by  a  bold  experiment  : 
here  is  Pickwick  and  here  is  Vanity  Fair  ;  the 
one  regarded  as  a  popular  "  comic  "  book,  the 
other  as  a  serious  masterpiece,  showing  vast 
insight  into  human  character ;  and  applying 
my  test,  I  set  Pickwick  beside  the  Odyssey,  and 
Vanity  Fair  on  top  of  the  political  pamphlet. 

I  will  not  argue  the  matter  at  the  moment ;  I 
would  merely  caution  you  against  supposing 
that  I  imply  any  equality  of  merit  in  the  books 
that  I  have  thus  summarily  "  bracketed."  You 
mustn't  suppose  that  I  think  Dickens's  book  as 
good  as  Homer's,  or  that  I  have  any  doubts  as 
to  the  vast  superiority  of  Vanity  Fair  over  all 
the  pamphlets  in  the  world.  "  Here  is  a  temple, 
here  is  a  tub,"  we  may  suppose  a  child  to  say, 
learning  from  a  picture-alphabet ;  but  the  temple 
may  be  a  miserably  designed  structure,  in 
ruinous  condition,  and  the  tub  is,  perhaps,  a 
miracle  of  excellent  workmanship.  But  one 
means  worship  and  the  other  means  washing, 
and  that  is  the  distinction.  Or,  to  take  a  better 
example  ;  the  bottom  boy  in  the  sixth  form 
may  be  a  miserable  dunce  compared  with  the 
top  boy  in  the  fifth  ;   still,  the  dunce  is  in  the 


26  Hieroglyphics 

sixth  form,  and  the  genius  is  in  the  fifth.  Or, 
to  take  a  third  instance  (I  want  you  to  under- 
stand what  I'm  driving  at),  the  fact  that  an 
EngHsh  orator  is  fluent,  brilliant,  profound, 
convincing,  while  a  Greek  orator  is  stuttering, 
stupid,  shallow,  illogical,  does  not  hinder  that  the 
former,  though  he  may  speak  ever  so  well,  still 
speaks  English,  while  the  latter,  however  badly 
he  may  speak,  speaks  in  Greek  for  all  that. 
Analogies,  as  you  know,  are  never  perfect,  and 
must  not  be  pressed  too  far ;  they  suggest 
rather  than  prove  ;  but  I  hope  you  understand 
me  though  you  may  not  agree  with  me. 

But  before  we  argue  the  merits  of  my  own 
literary  solvent,  we  might  very  well  see  what  we 
can  do  with  other  tests.  I  dare  say  you  can 
suggest  a  good  many.  We  won't  go  into  the 
question  of  printed  and  not  printed,  written  or 
not  written,  because  it  is  obvious  that  the  visible 
symbols  by  which  literature  is  recorded  have 
nothing  to  do  with  literature  itself.  In  the 
beginning  all  literature  was  a  matter  of  im- 
provisation or  recitation  and  memory,  and 
hieroglyphics,  writing,  printing  are  mere  con- 
veniences. Indeed,  the  point  is  only  worth 
mentioning  because  there  are,  I  believe,  simple 
souls  who  think  that  the  invention  of  printing 
has  some  sort  of  mysterious  connection  with  the 
birth  of  literature,  and  that  the  abolition  of  the 


Hieroglyphics  27 

paper  duty  was  its  coming  of  age.  But  I  don't 
think  we  need  trouble  ourselves  much  about  a 
view  of  literary  art  which  regards  the  cheap 
press  as  its  father  and  the  school-board  as  its 
nursing  mother.  Many  people  think,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  literature  is  to  be  estimated  by 
its  effect  on  the  emotions,  by  the  shock  which  it 
gives  to  the  system.  You  may  say  that  a  book 
which  interests  you  so  intensely  that  you  cannot 
put  it  down,  that  affects  you  so  acutely  that  you 
weep,  that  amuses  you  so  immensely  that  you 
roar  with  laughter,  must  be  very  good.  I  don't 
object  to  "  very  good,"  but,  from  my  point  of 
view,  "  very  good  "  and  "  fine  literature  "  are 
two  different  things.  You  see  I  believe  that  the 
difference  between  interesting,  exciting,  tear- 
compelling,  laughter-moving  reading-matter  and 
fine  art  is  not  specific  but  generic  :  who  would 
blaspheme  against  good  bitter  beer,  who  would 
say  that  because  it  is  good,  it  is  therefore  bur- 
gundy ? 

I  am  not  quite  sure  that  I  am  not  muddling 
up  two  things  which  are  in  reality  distinct. 
I  mean  I  am  in  doubt  whether  the  faculty  of 
making  the  reader  cry  ought  not  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  the  faculty  of  interesting  him 
intensely.  On  the  whole  I  think  that  it  would 
be  well  to  draw  a  line  between  the  two,  especially 
as  "  interesting  "  is  somewhat  ambiguous. 


2  8  Hieroglyphics 

And  you  think  it  a  paradox,  then,  to  maintain 
that  the  power  of  exciting  the  emotions  to  a 
high  degree  is  not  a  mark  of  fine  literature  ? 
But  just  think  it  over.  Suppose  that  a  few 
yards  from  this  room — in  the  next  house,  in  the 
next  street — a  woman  is  waiting  for  the  return 
of  her  husband  and  son.  A  ring  comes  at  the 
bell,  there's  a  reddish  brown  envelope,  and 
inside  it  the  message  :  "  Railway  accident — father 
killed."  Well,  you  can  imagine  the  effect  that 
these  four  words  will  have  on  the  woman's 
emotions ;  she  will  either  faint  away  or  burst 
into  an  agony  of  tears ;  she  may  even  die  of  the 
shock,  and  you  can't  have  a  more  striking 
emotional  result  than  death,  can  you  ?  Very 
well ;  but  is  the  telegram  fine  art  ?  Is  it  art  ? 
Is  it  even  artifice  ?  It  isn't  art  because  it  is  true  ! 
But  if  I  invented  such  a  telegram  and  sent  it  to  a 
woman  whose  husband  and  son  were  away,  would 
it  thereby  become  art  ?  You  must  see  perfectly 
well  that  it  would  be  nothing  of  the  kind  ;  and  I 
must  ask  you  to  explain  how  a  book  which  is, 
virtually,  a  long  succession  of  such  telegrams  can 
rise  higher  than  its  origin  and  source  ?  You  must 
see,  I  think,  that  the  question  of  truth  and 
falsity  can  make  no  real  difference  to  our  (no 
doubt  pompous)  high  aesthetic  standpoint ;  and 
if  you  admit  that  four  words  which  produce  an 
emotional  result  are  not  necessarily  art,  then  it 


Hieroglyphics  29 

follows    that    four   hundred    or    four   hundred 

thousand  words  woven  together  on  the  same 

principle  are  in  no  better  position.    An  increased 

quantity  means  no  doubt  an  increased  artifice, 

but  artifice  and  art  are  very  different   things. 

We   may  agree   then  that   it   is   impossible   to 

measure  the   artistic  merit   of  a   book  by  the 

emotional  shock  that  it  may  give  to  its  readers. 

I  have  never  read  The  Sorrows  of  Werther  ;    but 

if  you  have  read  it  and  it  has  made  you  sorrowful 

you  are  hereby  warned  against  deducing  from 

this  effect  any  conclusion  as  to  its  aesthetic  value. 

I  confess  all  this  seems  A  B  C  to  me,  though 

I  see  you  are  still  inclined  to  think  me  a  little 

paradoxical — not    to     say    sophistical — but    it 

grows    more    difficult    when    one    gets    to    the 

question  of  the  "  interesting  "  or  "  absorbing  " 

book.     As  I  said,  "  interesting  "  seems  such  an 

ambiguous  word.    It  may  stand  for  that  aesthetic 

emotion  produced,  say,  by  the  CEdipus ;   it  may 

denote  the  wide-eyed  attention  of  the  butcher's 

wife  listening  to  the  story  of  my  landlady  as 

to  the  love-affairs  of  the  grocer's   daughter — 

and  there  are  many  books  which  are,  virtually, 

"  Tales  of  My  Landlady  "  printed  and  bound. 

We   must    really   then   omit    "  interesting "    in 

our  account  of  the  possible  criteria  of  fine  art  ; 

the  word  as  it  were  cancels  itself  out,  because 

it  may  mean  on  the  one  hand  the  possession 


30  Hieroglyphics 

of  the  highest  artistic  value,  or  on  the  other  it 
may  serve  as  epithet  for  a  book  which  gratifies 
the  lowest  curiosity.  You  know  there  are  books 
which  the  French  have  kindly  named  romans 
a  clef ;  and  I  suppose  there  is  no  more  miser- 
able form  of  book-making.  The  recipe  is  easy 
enough.  The  grocer's  daughter,  to  whose 
amours  I  alluded  just  now,  is  really  named 
Miss  Buggins,  and  the  gentleman  is  Mr.  Tibb. 
Well,  suppose  that  my  landlady,  relating  their 
lyric  to  the  butcher's  wife,  should,  with  a 
knowing  wink,  profess  to  tell  the  story  of  Miss 
Ruggins  and  Mr.  Ribb — she  would  simply  be 
composing  a  roman  a  clef  without  knowing  it. 
You  might  say  that  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to 
labour  the  point,  that  such  "  interest  "  as  this 
is  wholly  and  lamentably  inartistic — that  it  is 
the  very  contrary  to  all  true  art — but  it  is  not 
long  since  a  person  of  some  literary  note, 
in  criticising  the  Heptameron,  stated  that  its 
chief  value  lay  in  the  fact  that  one  could 
identify  the  persons  who  tell  the  stories  and  those 
also  of  whom  they  were  told  ! 

But  there  is  another  interest  of  a  much  higher 
kind,  and  that  is  the  sensational.  We  have  done 
some  excellent  books  of  this  sort  in  England, 
and  perhaps  you  will  understand  the  class  I 
mean  when  I  say  that  a  novel  of  this  description 
is  hard  to  lay  down,  and  harder  still  to  take  up 


Hieroglyphics  3 1 

again  when  you  have  once  found  out  the  secret. 
This  is  not  high  art ;  you  are  always  at  Hberty 
to  put  down  Lycidas,  but  then  you  are  compelled 
to  take  it  up  again  and  again,  and  the  secret  of 
Lycidas  is  always  a  secret,  and  one  never  fails 
to  experience  the  joy  of  an  artistic  surprise. 
Still,  the  books  I  mean  sometimes  show  very 
high  artifice,  and  in  itself,  perhaps,  the  quality 
that  I  am  talking  about,  the  power  of  exciting  a 
vivid  curiosity,  an  earnest  desire  to  know  what 
is  to  come  next,  is  not,  like  the  vulgar  roman  a  clef 
curiosity,  in  actual  discord  from  the  purpose  of 
art.  Indeed,  I  imagine  that  this  trick  of  stimu- 
lating the  curiosity  may  be  made  subservient 
to  purely  aesthetic  ends,  it  may  become  a 
handmaid  to  lead  one  towards  that  desire  of  the 
unknown  which  I  think  was  one  of  the  synonyms 
I  gave  you  for  the  master  word — Ecstasy.  Still, 
though  the  trick  is  a  good  one,  it  will  not,  by 
itself,  make  fine  art.  You  may  discover  so  much 
by  reading  The  Moonstone,  that  monument  of 
ingenuity  and  absurdity.  On  the  face  of  it  all 
detective  stories  come  under  this  heading  : 
formally,  no  doubt,  they  must  all  be  reckoned 
as  tricks,  and  they  may  vary  from  the  infinitely 
ingenious  to  the  infinitely  imbecile,  and  so  far 
as  I  remember,  the  famous  French  tales  of 
detection  verge  towards  the  lower  rather  than 
the  higher  ground.    But  I  am  inclined,  not  very 


3  2  Hieroglyphics 

logically,  perhaps,  to  make  an  exception  in  favour 
of  Poe's  Dupin,  and  to  place  him  almost  in  the 
sphere  of  pure  literature.  Logically,  he  is  a 
detective,  but  I  almost  think  that  in  his  case 
the  detective  is  a  symbol  of  the  mystagogue. 
As  I  say,  I  should  be  pressed  hard  if  I  were  asked 
to  make  out  my  case  in  terms  and  syllogisms, 
but  if  you  require  me  to  do  so,  I  would  say  first 
of  all  that  the  atmosphere  of  Dupin — and 
you  must  remember  that  in  literature  everything 
counts ;  it  is  not  alone  the  plot  or  the  style 
that  we  have  to  consider — has  to  me  hints  of 
that  presence  which  I  have  called  ecstasy. 
Listen  to  this  : 

"  It  was  a  freak  of  fancy  in  my  friend  (for 
what  else  shall  I  call  it  ?)  to  be  enamoured  of 
the  Night  for  her  own  sake  ;  and  into  this 
bizarrerie,  as  into  all  his  others,  I  quietly  fell ; 
giving  myself  up  to  his  wild  whims  with  a 
perfect  abandon.  The  sable  divinity  would  not 
herself  dwell  with  us  always  ;  but  we  could 
counterfeit  her  presence.  At  the  first  dawn  of 
the  morning  we  closed  all  the  massive  shutters 
of  our  old  building,  lighting  a  couple  of  tapers 
which,  strongly  perfumed,  threw  out  only  the 
ghastliest  and  feeblest  of  rays.  By  the  aid  of 
these  we  then  buried  our  souls  in  dreams — 
reading,  writing,  or  conversing,  until  warned  by 
the  clock  of  the  advent  of  the  true  Darkness. 


Hieroglyphics  33 

Then  we  sallied  forth  into  the  streets,  arm  in 
arm,  continuing  the  topics  of  the  day,  or  roaming 
far  and  wide  until  a  late  hour,  seeking,  amid  the 
wild  lights  and  shadows  of  the  populous  city, 
that  infinity  of  mental  excitement  which  quiet 
observation  can  afford." 

And  again  ;  in  the  stories  themselves,  in  the 
conduct  of  M.  Dupin's  detective  processes,  I 
find  a  faint  suggestion  of  the  under-consciousness 
or  other-consciousness  of  man,  a  mere  hint,  not, 
I  think,  expressed  in  so  many  words,  rather  latent 
than  patent,  that  if  you  would  thoroughly 
understand  the  rational  man  you  must  have 
sounded  the  irrational  man,  the  mysterious 
companion  that  walks  beside  each  one  of  us 
on  the  earthly  journey.  Of  course  the  artifice 
in  the  Dupin  stories  is  of  the  very  highest  kind, 
but  for  the  reasons  I  have  given  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  there  is  more  than  artifice,  and  the 
shadow,  at  all  events,  of  art  itself. 

But  this  exceptional  case  of  Poe's  detective 
tales  only  leads  us  back  to  the  main  proposition 
— that  the  power  of  exciting  a  very  high  sensa- 
tional interest  does  not,  in  itself,  mark  out  a  book 
as  being  fine  literature.  I  think  I  proved  the 
proposition  by  my  instance  of  The  Moonstone^ 
but  if  that  does  not  convince  you,  we  might 
demonstrate  this  theorem  in  the  same  way  as 
we    demonstrated    the    other    one    about    the 


34  Hieroglyphics 

"  literature  "  that  produces  its  effect  on  the 
emotions.  We  have  only  to  send  out  a  series 
of  telegrams,  or  we  may  even  glance  at  the 
newspaper,  and  follow  a  case  in  the  Central 
Criminal  Court.  Or  we  may  affirm,  more 
generally,  that  life  often  offers  many  highly  ab- 
sorbing and  highly  interesting  spectacles,  but 
that  life  is  not  art,  and  therefore,  that  literature 
which  fails  to  rise  above  the  level  of  life,  or 
rather,  to  penetrate  beneath  the  surface  of  life, 
is  not  fine  literature  in  our  sense  of  that  term. 
A  gold  nugget  may  be  as  pure  and  fine  as  you 
like,  but  it  is  not  a  sovereign  ;  it  lacks  the  stamp  ; 
and  it  is  the  business  of  art  to  give  its  stamp  and 
imprint  to  the  matter  of  life. 

I  really  think  then  that  we  have  disposed  of 
perhaps  the  most  generally  received  of  artistic 
fallacies — that  books  are  to  be  judged  by  their 
power  of  reproducing  in  the  reader  those 
feelings  of  grief,  interest,  curiosity,  and  so  forth 
which  he  experiences  or  may  experience  in  his 
everyday  life,  which  he  really  does  experience 
in  greater  or  less  degree  every  time  he  talks  to 
a  friend,  takes  up  a  newspaper,  or  receives  a 
telegram.  It  comes  to  this  again  and  again, 
doesn't  it  ?  that  Art  and  Life  are  two  different 
spheres,  and  that  the  Artist  with  a  capital  A 
is  not  a  clever  photographer  who  understands 
selection  in  a  greater  or  less  degree. 


Hieroglyphics  35 

But  before  we  go  on  with  our  work  and  see 
what  can  be  done  with  other  literary  "  solvents  " 
I  want  to  make  a  digression.  I  should  have  made 
it  before,  if  you  had  pulled  me  up  at  the  proper 
cue,  and  that  was  when  I  spoke  of  "  interest  " 
as  a  highly  ambiguous  term,  the  fruitful  parent 
of  "  undistributed  middles."  You  see  how  the 
unscrupulous  sophist  would  bend  this  word  to 
his  dark  work,  don't  you  ?  It  would  be,  I 
suppose,  something  like  this  : 

A  very  high  degree  of  interest  [of  the  artistic 
kind]  is  the  mark  of  fine  literature. 

But  The  Moonstone  excites  a  very  high  degree  of 
interest  [of  the  sensational  kind]. 

Therefore,  The  Moonstone  has  the  mark  of  fine 
literature. 

You  note  the  "  paltering  "  with  the  word,  its 
use  now  in  one  sense,  and  now  in  another  ; 
and  if  that  sort  of  thing  were  allowed  we  should 
have  Wilkie  Collins  placed  among  the  Immortals 
before  we  knew  where  we  were.  But  hasn't  it 
occurred  to  you  that  nearly  all  the  terms  we 
are  using  are  patient  of  the  same  vile  uses  ? 
You  remember  that  we  began  with  "  literature  " 
itself,  as  a  monstrous  example  of  ambiguity, 
sheltering  as  it  did  both  the  publications  of 
the  Anti-Everything  Society  and  the  Song  of 
Ulysses'  Wandering  ;   even  now  we  are  trying  to 


3  6  Hieroglyphics 

track  the  monster  to  his  den  in  spite  of  his  mani- 
fold turnings  and  disguises.  In  the  meanwhile, 
for  the  sake  of  clearness,  we  agreed  to  prefix 
the  epithet  "  fine  "  to  the  word  when  we  meant 
the  Odyssey  class,  though  if  we  say  "  fine  "  so 
often  I  am  afraid  we  run  the  risk  of  being 
thought  superfine.  However,  one  must  run  all 
risks  in  the  cause  of  making  oneself  understood  ; 
and  so  I  say  you  ought  to  have  pulled  me  up 
when  I  talked  about  "  art  "  and  "  books  that 
appealed  to  the  emotions."  My  "  art  "  may 
not  be  the  same  as  your  "  art,"  and  "  emotions  " 
are  still  more  dangerous  in  the  same  way. 

I  think  I  made  some  attempt  to  deal  with 
"  art  "  as  I  was  talking.  I  contrasted  it  with 
"  artifice,"  and  my  phrase  "  Artist  with  a  big 
A  "  was  another  hint  to  you  that  the  word  must 
be  handled  cautiously.  You  know  that  in  ordinary 
conversation  we  say  that  bees  have  "  the  art  " 
or  "  an  art  "  of  making  hexagonal  cells  of  wax, 
that  wasps  have  an  art  of  making  a  sort  of 
paper  for  their  nests,  that  there  is  an  art  of 
logic,  an  art  of  cookery,  an  art  in  making  a 
gravel  path.  Now  in  each  of  these  instances  the 
word  really  speaks  of  the  adaptation  of  means 
to  ends.  In  the  case  of  the  bees  and  wasps 
there  is  a  slightly  different  nuance  of  meaning, 
because  they  make  their  cells  and  their  paper 
just  as  a  bird  builds  its  nest,  through  the  in- 


Hieroglyphics  37 

fluence  of  forces  which  to  us  are  occult,  which 
we  conveniently  sum  up  under  the  word  instinct. 
In  the  arts  of  cookery  and  path-making  there  is  a 
conscious  employment  of  certain  means  towards 
the  securing  of  certain  ends ;  and  it  is  at  least 
possible  that  the  swallow,  gathering  its  materials 
and  shaping  them,  has  at  the  moment  nothing 
but  a  blind  impulse,  similar  to  that  of  hunger. 
We  all  know  when  we  are  hungry  and  we  all 
know  what  to  do  in  such  a  case,  but  we  do 
not  all  know  the  physiology  of  the  stomach 
and  the  gastric  juices,  and  perhaps  not  one  of  us 
knows  the  whole  secret  of  inanition  and  nutri- 
tion. We  simply  eat  because  we  want  to  eat, 
not  because  we  wish  to  supply  ourselves  with 
a  certain  quantity  of  peptones  ;  and  so  perhaps 
the  swallow  gathers  her  nest  and  shapes  it, 
without  the  consciousness  of  the  eggs  and  the 
little  birds  that  are  to  follow.  But  I  need  not 
remind  you  that  there  are  plenty  of  well-authen- 
ticated instances  of  animals  who  have  con- 
sciously used  means  to  secure  ends,  and  thus 
"  art  "  in  its  common  significance  is  not  even  an 
exclusively  human  faculty.  When,  for  example, 
the  bees  find  themselves  in  danger  of  being  left 
queenless,  they  administer  what  has  been 
called  "  royal  food  "  to  a  common  grub,  and  that 
which  would  have  been  a  worker  becomes  a 
queen  ;    and  in  this  case  the  bees  are  as  much 


3  8  Hieroglyphics 


"  artists  "  as  the  cook  who  puts  a  particular 
ingredient  into  a  dish  with  the  view  of  obtaining 
a  particular  flavour. 

Now,  then,  let  us  apply  all  this  to  our  matter. 
I  dare  say  you  have  often  heard  a  book  praised 
for  its  "  great  art,"  and  if  you  have  read  it  you 
will  have  discovered  that  its  "  art  "  is  simply 
contrivance,  the  very  adaptation  of  means  to 
ends  that  we  have  been  discussing.  "  The  art 
with  which  the  mystery  is  carefully  kept  in  the 
background,"  "  the  art  by  which  the  two 
characters  are  contrasted  throughout  the 
volume,"  "  the  highly  artistic  manner  in  which 
Fernando  and  the  heroine  are  brought  together 
on  the  last  page  " — these,  you  see  clearly,  are 
contrivances,  artifices,  in  no  way  differing  in 
degree  from  the  contrivances  of  the  man  who 
makes  the  garden  path,  of  the  cook  who  "  dusts 
in  "  just  a  suspicion  of  lemon-rind,  of  the  bee 
who  administers  the  "  royal  food."  This 
"  art  "  then  is  a  totally  different  thing  from  our 
Art  with  the  capital  letter,  with  the  epithet 
"  fine  "  or  "  high  "  before  it ;  and  in  future 
when  I  mean  "  adaptation  of  means  to  ends," 
I  shall  always  say  "  artifice,"  while  "  art  " 
will  be  retained  and  set  apart  for  higher  uses. 

And  now  as  to  "  emotion."  Here,  I  think, 
you  ought  to  have  been  down  on  me.  You 
might  have  said  :   "  You  declare  that  the  appeal 


Hieroglyphics  3  9 

to  the  emotions  is  not  a  test  of  fine  literature. 
But  to  what  then  does  Homer  appeal  ?  What 
is  the  CEdipus  but  an  appeal  to  the  emotions  ? 
What  is  all  exquisite  lyric  poetry  but  the  cry  of 
the  emotions,  set  to  music  ?  "  I  suppose 
that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  you  understood  my 
real  meaning  by  the  instance  I  gave  ;  the 
anguish  of  a  wife  at  the  loss  of  a  husband  ; 
you  saw  that  what  I  wanted  to  say  was  this  : 
that  fine  literature  does  not  content  itself  with 
repeating,  or  mimicking,  the  emotions  of 
private,  personal,  everyday  Ufe.  Still,  I  should 
have  gone  into  the  matter  more  fully  then, 
and  as  I  did  not  do  so  we  had  better  see  what 
can  be  done  now.  And  do  you  know  that  I 
believe  that  the  best  approach  we  can  make  to 
a  rather  subtle  question  will  be  a  somewhat 
indirect  one  ?  Just  now  I  was  talking  about 
Poe's  Dupin  stories,  and  I  tried,  rather  vaguely, 
to  justify  my  tentative  inclusion  of  them 
in  the  higher  class  of  letters,  by  pointing  out 
that  Poe  seemed  to  hint  at  the  "  other-conscious- 
ness "  of  man,  and  to  suggest,  at  least,  the 
presence  of  that  shadowy,  unknown,  or  half- 
known  Companion  who  walks  beside  each  one 
of  us  all  our  days.  I  tried  to  realise  the  image 
of  a  man,  followed  or  rather  attended,  by 
a  spiritual  fellow,  treading  a  path  parallel  with 
but  different  from  his  own  ;  and  now  I  want  you 


40  Hieroglyphics 

to  carry  out  this  image  into  the  sphere  of  words. 
Already  you  must  have  a  hint  of  it.  One  might 
draw  a  figure  ;  something  Uke  this : 

Fine  Literature.  "  Literature." 

Art.  Artifice. 

Emotion.  Feelings. 

And  before  I  go  into  the  special  question,  let  me 
extend  the  list ;   it  will  explain  itself. 

Romance,  romantic.  A    "  Romantic "    Affair    in 

the  West  End. 

Tragedy,  tragic.  "  Tragedy  "  in  Soho. 

Drama,  dramatic.  Le    "  drame "    de    la    Rue 

Cochon  :  "  Dramatic  " 
Elopement  in  Peckham. 

Interest,  interesting  [of  An  "  interesting  "  number  of 
Hamlet].  "  Snippets." 

Lyric.  The  "  Lyric  "  Theatre. 

Inebriated.  In  an  "inebriated"  condition. 

That  almost  gives  my  secret  away,  doesn't 
it  ?  Of  course  you  see  the  place  that  the 
words  in  the  right-hand  column  take  in  the 
scheme.  The  "  Romantic  "  Affair  in  the  West 
End  really  concerned  the  life  of  a  draper's 
assistant,  who  robbed  his  master's  till  in  order 
that  he  might  make  presents  to  Miss  Claire 
Tilbury,  one  of  the  "  Sisters  Tilbury "  now 
performing  at  the  Lucifer.  An  unmentionable 
person  cut  his  throat  in  some  alley  off  Greek 


Hieroglyphics  4 1 

Street ;  hence  the  "  Tragedy  "  in  Soho.  Two 
peculiarly  squalid  servants,  who  beat  out  their 
master's  brains,  under  singularly  uninteresting 
circumstances,  acted  the  "  Drama  "  of  the  Rue 
Cochon,  and  it  was  a  dissolute  barmaid  who 
eloped  "  dramatically  "  from  Peckham  in  the 
dog-cart  of  her  employer.  The  two  varying 
uses  of  the  word  "  lyric  "  need  not  be  under- 
lined for  you,  who  know  the  Elizabethans  and 
the  Cavaliers ;  but  perhaps  I  may  say  that  he 
who  tastes  calix  mens  inebrians  will  not  be  in 
an  "  inebriated "  condition.  It  would  be 
possible  to  extend  these  parallel  columns  almost 
to  infinity  ;  but  I  think  the  list  is  long  enough 
for  our  purpose,  and  Trench  On  Words  is 
a  well-known  handbook.  But  you  see  my 
hrigt-hand  column  word  parallel  with  "  Emo- 
tion "  ?  You  see  I  have  written  "  Feelings," 
and  I  suggest  that  it  will  be  convenient  to  speak 
of  feelings  when  we  mean  the  things  of  life,  of 
society,  of  personal  and  private  relationship, 
while  we  may  reserve  emotion  for  the  influence 
produced  in  man  by  fine  art.  Thus  it  will  be 
with  emotion  that  we  witness  the  fall  of  CEdipus, 
the  madness  of  Lear,  while  we  feel  for  our  friends 
and  ourselves  in  misfortune.  That  seems  to 
make  it  plain  enough,  doesn't  it  ?  You  see  now, 
clearly,  what  I  mean  by  saying  that  the  power 
of  producing  an  emotional  shock  cannot  be  a 


42  Hieroglyphics 

test  of  fine  literature.  Art  must  appeal  to  emo- 
tion, and  sometimes,  no  doubt,  with  a  shock  ; 
but  it  must  always  be  to  the  emotion  of  the 
left-hand  column,  never  to  the  "  feelings " 
on  the  right  hand.  So  you  must  never  tell  me 
that  a  book  is  fine  art  because  it  made  you,  or 
somebody  else,  cry  ;  your  tears  are,  emphatically, 
not  evidence  in  the  court  of  Fine  Literature. 

I  dare  say  it  may  have  struck  you  that  the 
tests  we  have  considered  hitherto  have  been, 
in  the  main,  popular  tests.  No  doubt  many 
persons  calling  themselves  critics  have  praised 
the  art  of  a  book  because  it  has  drawn  tears 
from  eyes,  or  because  it  has  not  suffered  itself 
to  be  put  down,  or  because  it  contains  easily 
recognisable  portraits  of  well-known  people, 
but  such  critics  are  to  be  spelt  with  a  very  small 
initial  letter,  and,  as  I  said,  I  don't  think  we 
want  to  extend  that  list  of  parallels.  There  is 
another  test  that  I  had  forgotten  :  I  suppose 
there  really  are  people  who  believe  that  a  book 
is  fine  "  because  it  will  do  good,"  but  I  don't 
think  we'll  argue  with  them,  though  I  once 
knew  a  liberally  educated  man  who  said  a 
certain  book  was  fine  because  it  tended  "  to 
raise  one's  opinion  of  the  clergy."  So  we  will 
reckon  our  "  popular  "  tests  as  done  with,  and 
proceed  to  the  more  technical  solvents  that  are 
proposed  by  professed  men  of  letters. 


Hieroglyphics  43 

Three  of  these  more  literary  criteria  occur  to 
me  at  the  moment,  and  I  believe  we  shall  under- 
stand them  and  the  position  which  they  repre- 
sent better  if  we  take  them,  at  first,  at  all  events, 
in  a  mass.  I  can  conceive,  then,  that  many- 
persons  whose  opinion  one  would  respect  would 
state  their  position  in  literary  criticism  some- 
what as  follows  : — "  If  a  book  [they  would  say] 
shows  keenness  of  observation,  insight  into 
character,  with  fidelity  to  Hfe  as  the  result  of 
these  capacities  ;  if  its  art  [we  should  say, 
artifice]  in  the  design  and  '  laying  out  '  of  the 
plot,  in  the  contrivance  of  incident  is  confessedly 
admirable,  and  finally  if  it  is  written  in  a  good 
style  :  then  you  have  fine  literature.  Fine  art, 
in  short,  is  a  clear  mirror,  and  the  artist's  skill 
consists  in  arranging  and  selecting  such  parts  of 
life  as  he  thinks  best  for  his  purpose  of  re- 
flection." 

Well,  now,  as  to  the  first  point  :  fidelity  to 
life,  clearness  of  reflection,  the  selection  being 
taken  for  granted,  as  no  one  out  of  an  asylum 
would  maintain  that  a  book  must  mirror  the 
whole  of  life,  or  even  the  millionth  part  of  one 
particular  man's  life.  Come,  let  us  apply  the  test 
in  question  to  one  or  two  of  the  acknowledged 
excellences — to  the  Odyssey,  for  instance,  to  the 
Morte  d' Arthur,  to  Don  Quixote.  Is  the  story 
of  Ulysses,  in  any  accepted  sense  of  the  phrase, 


44  Hieroglyphics 

"  faithful  "  to  life  as  we  know  it  ?  Is  it  "  faith- 
ful," that  is  to  say,  with  the  fidelity  of  Jane 
Austen,  of  Thackeray,  of  George  Eliot,  of 
Fielding  ?  Is  there  anything  in  our  experience 
answering  to  the  episodes  of  the  Lotus-Eaters, 
Calypso's  Isle,  the  Cyclops'  Cavern,  the  descent 
of  the  Goddess  ?  Is  the  "  reflection  "  even  a 
reflection  of  Homer's  own  experience  ?  Had  he 
escaped  from  the  cave  under  the  belly  of  a 
ram  ?  Had  he  been  in  the  world  of  one-eyed 
giants  ?  Were  his  friends  in  the  habit  of 
talking  in  hexameter  verse  ?  We  may  go  on,  of 
course,  but  is  it  worth  while  ?  It  is  surely 
hardly  necessary  to  demonstrate  the  fact  that 
the  author  of  the  Morte  d^ Arthur  had  never 
seen  the  Graal,  that  such  a  character  as  Don 
Quixote  never  existed  in  the  natural  order  of 
things.  We  might  have  gone  more  sharply  to 
work  with  this  "  fidelity  "  test  :  we  might  have 
said  that  poetry  being,  admittedly,  fine  literature 
at  its  finest,  and  (admittedly  also)  being  un- 
faithful to  life  as  we  know  it  both  in  matter  and 
manner,  therefore  the  test  breaks  down  at 
once.  If  fine  literature  must  be  faithful  to  life, 
then  Kubla  Khan  is  not  fine  literature  ;  which, 
I  think  we  may  say,  is  highly  absurd, 

I  dare  say  you  think  I  have  dealt  rather  crudely, 
in  a  somewhat  materialistic  spirit,  with  this 
criterion   of   "  fidelity   to   life."     I   admit   the 


Hieroglyphics  45 

charge,  but  you  must  remember  that  I  am 
dealing  with  very  bad  people,  who  understand 
nothing  but  materialism.  And  when  these 
people  tell  you  in  so  many  words  that  it  is  the 
author's  business  clearly  and  intelligently  to 
present  the  life — the  common,  social  life  around 
him — then,  believe  me,  the  only  thing  to  be 
done  is  to  throw  Odyssey  and  GEdipus,  Morte 
d'Arthur,  Kubla  Khan,  and  Don  Quixote 
straight  in  their  faces,  and  to  demonstrate  that 
these  eternal  books  were  not  constructed  on 
the  proposed  recipe.  Of  course  if  I  were 
treating  with  the  initiated,  if  I  were  com- 
mentating and  not  arguing,  I  should  handle  the 
great  masterpieces  in  a  much  moie  reverent 
manner.  I  mean  that  for  those  who  possess  the 
secret  it  skills  not  to  bring  in  the  Cyclops  (who 
for  us  is  not  a  giant  but  a  symbol)  ;  we  have 
only  to  bow  down  before  the  great  music  of  such 
a  poem  as  the  Odyssey,  recognising  that  by  the 
very  reason  of  its  transcendent  beauty,  by  the 
very  fact  that  it  trespasses  far  beyond  the  world 
of  our  daily  lives,  beyond  "  selection "  and 
**  reflection,"  it  is  also  exalted  above  our  under- 
standing, that  because  its  beauty  is  supreme, 
therefore  its  beauty  is  largely  beyond  criti- 
cism. For  ourselves  we  do  not  need  to  prove 
its  transcendence  of  life  by  this  or  that  extra- 
ordinary incident ;    it  is  the  whole  spirit  and 


46  Hieroglyphics 

essence  and  sound  and  colour  of  the  song  that 
affect  us  ;  and  we  know  that  the  Odyssey  sur- 
passed the  bounds  of  its  own  age  and  its  own 
land  just  as  much  as  it  surpasses  those  of  our  time 
and  own  country.  You  look  as  if  you  thought 
I  were  fighting  with  the  vanquished,  but  let  me 
tell  you  that  great  people  have  praised  Homer 
because  he  depicted  truthfully  the  men  and 
manners  of  his  time. 

But  as  I  was  saying,  all  this  would  be  too 
subtle  for  the  enemy,  for  the  people  who 
maintain  that  fine  literature  is  a  faithful 
reflection  of  life,  and  think  that  Jane  Austen 
touched  the  point  of  literary  supremacy. 
With  them,  as  I  said,  we  must  be  rough  ;  we 
must  ask  :  Did  Sophocles  describe  the  ordinary 
life  of  Athens  in  his  day  ?  No  :  very  well, 
then ;  since  the  works  of  Sophocles  are  fine 
literature,  it  follows  that  some  fine  literature 
does  not  reflect  ordinary  life,  and  therefore  that 
fidelity  to  nature  is  not  the  differentia  of  the 
highest  art. 

I  wonder  whether  I  ought  to  caution  you  again 
against  the  ambiguity  of  language  ?  We  are 
dealing  easily  enough  with  such  words  as  "  life  " 
and  "  nature,"  and  from  what  you  know  of  my 
system  you  may  perhaps  have  seen  that  I  have 
been  using  these  words  as  the  people  use  them, 
as  those  use  them  who  would  say  that  Vanity 


Hieroglyphics  47 

Fair  is  a  faithful  presentation  of  life.  I  thought 
you  would  understand  this,  but  I  may  just 
mention  in  passing  that  words  like  "  nature," 
"life,"  and  "truth"  or  "fidelity"  have  also 
their  esoteric  values,  that  (by  way  of  example) 
the  truth  of  the  scientist  and  the  truth  of  the 
philosopher  are  two  very  different  things.  So 
it  may  turn  out  by  and  by  that  in  the  occult 
sense  "  fidelity  to  life  "  is  the  differentia  of  fine 
literature  ;  that  the  aim  of  art  is  truth  ;  that  the 
artist  continually  mirrors  nature  in  its  eternal, 
essential  forms ;  but  for  the  present  moment 
it  is  understood,  is  it  not  ?  that  these  words  have 
been  used  in  their  common,  everyday  popular 
significance.  The  Dunciad  is  a  study  of  man, 
and  Wordsworth's  Ode  on  Intimations  of  Im- 
mortality is  a  study  of  man,  and  the  literary 
standpoint  that  we  have  been  attacking  is  that 
of  Pope  and  not  that  of  Wordsworth. 

If  I  remember,  the  next  test  we  have  to  analyse 
is  that  of  artifice,  often  and  improperly  called 
art.  But  I  think  we  have  already  demolished 
this  criterion.  In  distinguishing  between  art  and 
artifice  I  pointed  out  that  the  latter  merely 
signifies  the  adaptation  of  means  to  an  end,  and 
has  no  relation  whatever  with  art  properly 
so  called  ;  it  is  simply  the  mental  instrument 
with  which  man  performs  every  task  and  every 
work  of  his  daily  hfe  ;  it  consists  in  the  rejection 


48  Hieroglyphics 

o£  that  which  is  unfit  for  the  particular  purpose 
in  view,  and  in  the  acceptance  and  use  of  that 
which  is  fit  for  the  desired  end  and  Hkely  to 
bring  it  about.  It  concerns  not  creation  but 
execution,  and  it  is  I  need  hardly  say  as  indis- 
pensable to  the  author  as  are  his  pen  and  ink,  and 
(I  might  almost  say)  is  as  little  concerned  as  these 
with  the  essence  of  his  art.  Of  course  in  works 
of  the  very  highest  genius  we  may  declare  that, 
in  a  sense,  art  has  become  all  in  all,  that  the 
necessary  artifice  has  been  interpenetrated  with 
art,  so  that  we  can  hardly  distinguish  in  our 
minds  between  the  idea  and  the  realisation  of  it. 
In  such  cases  artifice  has  been  lifted  up  and 
exalted  into  the  heaven  of  art,  and  it  remains 
artifice  no  longer  ;  but  in  the  view  that  we  are 
considering  it  is  merely  the  adaptation  of  means 
to  an  end,  a  clever  choice  of  incident,  the  knack 
of  putting  in  and  leaving  out.  The  faculty 
may,  as  I  said,  be  glorified  and  transfigured  by 
genius,  but  every  newspaper  reporter  must  have 
more  or  less  of  it,  and  it  is  clear  enough  I  think 
(perhaps  I  may  mention  Wilkie  Collins  once 
more)  that  in  itself  it  cannot  establish  the  claim 
of  any  book  to  be  fine  literature. 

And  lastly  we  have  to  deal  with  style  ;  and 
here  again  I  must  have  recourse  to  my  dis- 
tinctions. What  is  a.  good  style  ?  If  you  mean 
by    a    "  good "    style    one    that    delivers    the 


Hieroglyphics  49 

author's  meaning  in  the  clearest  possible 
manner,  if  its  purpose  and  effect  are  obviously 
utiUtarian,  if  it  be  designed  solely  with  the  view 
of  imparting  knowledge — the  knowledge  of 
what  the  author  intends — then  I  must  point  out 
that  "  style  "  in  this  sense  is  or  should  be  amongst 
the  accomplishments  of  every  commercial  clerk 
— indeed,  it  will  be  merely  a  synonym  for  plain 
speaking  and  plain  writing — and  in  this  sense  it 
is  evidently  not  one  of  the  marks  of  art,  since 
the  object  of  art  is  not  information,  but  a 
peculiar  kind  of  aesthetic  delight.  But  if  on  the 
other  hand  style  is  to  mean  such  a  use  and  choice 
of  words  and  phrases  and  cadences  that  the  ear 
and  the  soul  through  the  ear  receive  an  impres- 
sion of  subtle  but  most  beautiful  music,  if  the 
sense  and  sound  and  colour  of  the  words  affect 
us  with  an  almost  inexplicable  delight,  then  I 
say  that  while  idea  is  the  soul,  style  is  the 
glorified  body  of  the  very  highest  literary  art. 
Style,  in  short,  is  the  last  perfection  of  the  very 
best  in  literature,  it  is  the  outward  sign  of  the 
burning  grace  within.  But  we  must  keep  the 
systematic  consideration  of  style  for  some  other 
night  ;  it's  not  a  subject  to  be  dealt  with  by  the 
way,  and  I  have  only  said  so  much  because  it 
was  necessary  to  draw  the  line  between  language 
as  a  means  of  imparting  facts  (good  style  in  the 
sense   of   our   opponents)  and   language   as   an 


so  Hieroglyphics 

aesthetic  instrument,  which  is  a  good,  or  rather 
a  beautiful  style  in  our  sense.  In  the  latter  sense 
it  is  the  form  of  fine  literature,  in  the  former 
sense  it  is  the  medium  of  all  else  that  is  expressed 
in  words,  from  a  bill  of  exchange  upwards. 

It  seems  to  me,  then,  that  we  have  considered 
one  by  one  the  alternative  tests  of  fine  literature 
which  have  been  or  may  be  proposed,  and  we 
have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  each  and  all 
are  impossible.  It  is  no  longer  permissible,  I 
imagine,  for  you  or  for  me  to  say  :  "  This  book  is 
fine  literature  because  it  makes  me  cry,  because  it 
was  so  interesting  that  I  couldn't  put  it  down, 
because  it  is  so  natural  and  faithful  to  life, 
because  it  is  so  well  (plainly  and  neatly)  written." 
We  have  picked  these  reasons  to  pieces  one  by 
one,  and  the  result  is  that  we  are  driven  back 
on  my  "  word  of  the  enigma  " — Ecstasy  ;  the 
infallible  instrument,  as  I  think,  by  which  fine 
literature  may  be  discerned  from  reading- 
matter,  by  which  art  may  be  known  from  artifice, 
and  style  from  intelligent  expression.  At  any 
rate  we  have  got  our  hypothesis,  and  you 
remember  what  stress  Coleridge  laid  on  the 
necessity  of  forming  some  hypothesis  before 
entering  on  any  investigation. 

I  believe  we  began  to-night  with  the  evening 
paper,  and  the  strange  glimpse  it  gives  us, 
through  a  pinky-green  veil,  through  a  -loud  of 


Hieroglyphics  5 1 

laborious  nonsense  about  odds  and  winners  and 
tips  and  all  such  foolery,  into  that  ancient  eternal 
desire  o£  man  for  the  unknown.  And  that, 
you  remember,  was  one  of  the  synonyms  that  I 
offered  you  for  ecstasy  ;  and  so  in  a  sense  I 
expect  that  we  shall  have  the  evening  paper  close 
beside  us  all  the  way  of  our  long  voyage  in  quest 
of  the  lost  Atlantis. 


II 


I  THINK  it  is  a  horrible  thing  to  have  such 
a  good  memory  as  that.  I  recollect,  now 
that  you  remind  me,  that  I  did  lay  down 
Pickwick  V.  Vanity  Fair  as  a  sort  of  test  case 
of  my  theory  of  literature  ;  but  you  surely  do 
not  expect  me  to  work  out  the  arguments  in 
detail  ?  Of  course  if  I  were  giving  a  series  of 
lectures  I  should  "  set  a  paper  "  after  each  one  ; 
but  I  expect  you  to  content  yourself  with  the 
suggestion,  with  the  skeleton  map,  as  it  were. 
Besides,  if  we  take  that  special  case  of  two 
eminent  Victorian  novels  as  a  concrete  instance 
of  the  abstract  argument,  don't  you  see  that  we 
are  answering  the  particular  question  all  the 
while  that  we  are  investigating  the  general 
proposition  ?  Surely,  if  you  recollect  all  that  we 
said  about  fine  literature  in  general,  you  won't 
have  much  difficulty  in  adjudicating  on  the  claims 
of  Thackeray.  Don't  you  see  that  he  never 
withdraws  himself  from  the  common  life  and 
the  common  consciousness,  that  he  is  all  the 
while  nothing  but  a  photographer  ;  a  showman 
with  a  set  of  pictures  ?    A  consummately  clever 

52 


Hieroglyphics  53 

photographer,  certainly,  a  showman  with  a  gift 
of  amusing,  interesting  "  patter  "  that  is  quite 
extraordinary,  an  artificer  of  very  high  merit. 
But  where  will  you  find  Ecstasy  in  Thackeray  ? 
Where  is  his  adoration  ?  You  may  search,  I 
think,  from  one  end  of  his  books  to  the  other, 
without  finding  any  evidence  that  he  realised  the 
mystery  of  things ;  he  was  never  for  a  moment 
aware  of  that  shadowy  double,  that  strange 
companion  of  man,  who  walks,  as  I  said,  foot  to 
foot  with  each  one  of  us,  and  yet  his  paces  are  in 
an  unknown  w^orld.  And  (unless  you  have  got 
any  fresh  arguments)  I  think  we  decided  last 
week  that  the  book  which  lacks  the  sense  of  all 
this  is  not  fine  literature. 

I  hope  you  don't  think  I  am  abusing  Thack- 
eray. I  am  always  reading  him,  and  I  chose  his 
Vanity  Fair  because  it  strikes  me  as  such  a 
supremely  clever  example  of  its  class.  I  sup- 
pose there  is  nothing  more  amusing  than  the 
society  of  a  brilliant,  observant  man  of  the 
world.  Well,  Thackeray  was  brilHant  and 
observant  in  excelsis,  and  besides  that,  he  under- 
stood the  artifice  of  story-telling,  and  he  could 
write  a  terse,  clean-cut  English  which  was 
always  sufficient  for  his  purpose.  He  contrives 
the  corporal  overthrow  of  the  Marquis  of  Steyne, 
he  shows  you  that  bald  old  nobleman  sprawhng 
on  the  floor,  and  the  words  that  he  uses  are  his 


54  Hieroglyphics 

brisk,  willing,  and  capable  servants.  He  has 
observation,  and  artifice,  and  "  style  "  in  that 
secondary  sense  which  we  distinguished  from 
the  real  style  ;  from  those  "  melodies  unheard  " 
which  I  called  (I  think  rather  picturesquely)  the 
glorified  body  of  the  highest  literary  art.  But 
these  qualities,  we  found  out,  are  not,  separately 
or  conjointly,  the  differentia  of  fine  literature 
as  we  understand  the  term  ;  and  consequently, 
with  all  our  admiration  and  all  our  interest,  we  are 
compelled  to  place  Thackeray  in  the  lower  form, 
simply  because  he  is  clearly  and  decisively  lacking 
in  that  one  essential  quality  of  ecstasy,  because  he 
never  leaves  the  street  and  the  highroad  to 
wander  on  the  eternal  hills,  because  he  does  not 
seem  to  be  aware  that  such  hills  exist. 

Of  course  I  have  only  taken  Thackeray  as  the 
representative  of  his  class,  and  I  chose  him,  as  I 
remarked,  because,  for  me,  he  is  the  most 
favourable  representative  of  it.  I  am  thinking, 
really,  of  the  "  plain  man  "  whom  we  have  en- 
gaged in  so  many  forms,  and  of  his  "  plain  " 
argument  which  comes  to  this — "  for  me  a  great 
book  is  a  book  that  amuses  me  greatly  and  that 
I  enjoy  reading."  And  I  say  that  Thackeray 
amuses  me  greatly  and  that  I  enjoy  reading  his 
books  immensely,  but  that,  with  due  respect  to 
"  common  sense,"  such  an  argument  fails  to 
prove  that  Vanity  Fair  is  fine  literature.    Other 


Hieroglyphics  $s 

people  would,  no  doubt,  have  chosen  other 
books ;  many  would  have  selected  Miss  Austen, 
and  I  dare  say  they  would  have  a  good  deal  to 
say  for  their  choice.  Undoubtedly  there  is  a 
severity,  a  self-restraint,  a  fineness  of  observation, 
a  delicacy  of  irony  in  Pride  and  Prejudice  which 
are  unmatched  of  their  kind  (the  Thackeray  of 
the  caricatures,  of  those  queer  woodblocks, 
comes  out  now  and  then  in  the  books,  and 
digression  occasionally  goes  beyond  due  bounds)  ; 
but  I  named  Vanity  Fair  because,  personally,  I 
find  it  more  amusing  than  Pride  and  Prejudice. 
In  neither  of  these  books  is  there  art  in  our  high 
sense  of  the  word,  and  in  preferring  the  one 
over  the  other  I  am  simply  saying  that  I  prefer 
the  company  of  a  brilliant  and  witty  cosmo- 
politan to  that  of  a  very  keen  and  delicate,  but 
very  limited  maiden  lady,  who  lives  in  a  remote 
country  town  and  understands  thoroughly  the 
reason  why  the  vicar  bowed  so  low  when  a  certain 
carriage  rolled  up  the  high  street,  and  why  that 
pretty,  prim  girl  crossed  over  the  way  when  the 
handsome  gentleman  from  the  Hall  came  out  of 
the  chymist's.  Yes,  the  cosmopolitan  at  the  club 
window  certainly  fails  a  little  in  his  manners 
now  and  then,  and  the  country  gentlewoman's 
breeding  is  perfect  of  its  kind,  but  the  circles  in 
which  Pendennis  moved  are  (to  me)  so  infinitely 
the  more  entertaining  of  the  two. 


56  Hieroglyphics 

You  see,  I  think  that  the  question  of  liking  a 
book  or  not  liking  it  has  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  the  consideration  of  fine  art.  Art  is  there, 
if  I  may  say  so,  just  as  the  Tenth  Commandment 
is  there  ;  and  if  we  don't  like  them,  so  much  the 
worse  for  us.  I  may  find  Homer  very  dull 
reading,  I  may  covet  your  ox  and  your  ass  and 
everything  that  is  yours,  but  my  limited  and 
somewhat  commonplace  brains,  and  my  envy  of 
your  prosperity,  won't  alter  the  fact  that  the 
Odyssey  is  fine  literature  and  that  covetousness 
is  wicked.  But  when  we  once  leave  the  utterances 
of  the  eternal,  universal  human  ecstasy,  which 
we  have  agreed  to  call  art,  and  descend  to  these 
lower  levels  that  we  are  talking  of  now,  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  question  of  liking  or  not  liking 
counts  for  a  good  deal.  Not  for  everything,  of 
course.  We  must  still  distinguish :  between 
plots  stupid  or  ingenious,  between  observation 
that  is  close  and  keen  and  observation  that  is 
vague  and  inaccurate,  between  artifice  and  the 
want  of  it,  between  sentences  that  are  neatly 
constructed  and  mere  slipshod.  All  these  things 
naturally  reckon  in  the  account,  but  when  they 
have  been  estimated  and  allowed  their  value,  you 
will  usually  find  that  you  are  influenced  still  more 
by  your  mere  liking  or  disliking  of  the  subject- 
matter,  and  it  seems  to  me  quite  legitimately.  For, 
if  you  look  closely  into  the  whole  question,  you 


Hieroglyphics  5  7 

will  find  that  you  are  judging  these  secondary- 
books  as  you  judge  o£  life,  as  you  choose  the 
scene  of  your  holiday,  as  you  read  the  newspaper. 
One  man  may  say  that  he  prefers  to  talk  to 
artists,  another,  quite  legitimately,  may  love 
the  society  of  brewers ;  you  may  think  Norway 
perfection,  I  am  going  to  Constantinople  ;  A. 
turns  at  once  to  the  quotation  for  Turpentine  at 
Savannah,  B.  folds  down  the  sheet  at  the  Police 
News.  It  is  not  a  question  of  art,  but  of  taste, 
that  is,  of  individual  humour  and  constitution  ; 
you  frequent  the  company  that  suits  you,  you 
go  to  the  place  you  like,  you  read  the  news  that 
happens  to  be  most  interesting  from  your 
special  standpoint.  And  in  the  same  way,  if  I 
find  the  conversation  of  Miss  Becky  Sharp,  as 
reported  by  Mr.  W.  M.  Thackeray,  more  amusing 
than  the  conversation  of  Miss  Elizabeth  Bennett 
as  reported  by  Miss  Jane  Austen,  it  seems  to  me 
that  there  is  no  more  to  be  said.  Elizabeth's 
remarks  are  more  skilfully  reported  ?  Very 
likely,  but,  granting  that,  I  had  rather  listen  to 
the  record,  imperfect,  if  you  please,  of  the  other 
lady's  conversation.  Here  is  a  speech  on 
Bimetallism,  given  at  great  length,  and  (let  us 
presume)  with  great  accuracy  ;  here  is  a  short 
summary  of  Professor  L.'s  lecture  on  the 
Eleusinian  Mysteries,  very  badly  "  sub-edited." 
But,  you  see,  I  happen  not  to  care  twopence 


5  8  Hieroglyphics 

about  Bimetallism,  so  I  turn  away  from  the 
careful  report,  growling  ;  while  I  cut  out  that 
wretched  summary  of  the  lecture  with  the 
purpose  of  pasting  it  in  my  scrap-book,  since 
every  word  about  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries  has 
a  vivid  interest  for  me. 

It  often  amuses  me  to  hear  people  quarrelling 
about  the  rival  "  artistic  merit  "  of  books  which 
have,  in  most  cases,  no  artistic  merits  at  all. 
A.  writes  a  book  about  greengrocers,  and  you, 
who  find  something  singularly  piquant  and 
entertaining  in  the  manners,  speech,  and  habits 
of  the  class  in  question,  pronounce  A.  to  be  a 
"  great  artist  "  who  has  written  a  masterpiece. 
I  love  dukes,  and  B's.  novel  of  the  peerage  strikes 
me  as  a  marvel  of  artistic  accomplishment, 
while  I  pronounce  the  work  that  has  charmed 
you  to  be  as  stupid  and  tiresome  as  the  class  it 
represents.  Each  of  us  is  talking  nonsense ; 
there  is  no  art  in  the  question,  which  is  purely 
a  matter  of  individual  taste.  The  Stock  Exchange 
column  interests  one  man,  while  the  latest 
football  news  absorbs  the  other.    That  is  all. 

Of  course,  as  I  said,  artifice  counts  for  some- 
thing :  there  is  a  pleasure  in  seeing  the  thing 
neatly  done,  and  I  suppose  it  is  this  pleasure  that 
has  secured  Miss  Austen  her  fervent  admirers. 
It  is  a  Httle  difficult  to  treat  this  form  of  pleasure 
quite  fairly ;   a  musician  perhaps  would  find  it 


Hieroglyphics  59 

difficult  to  answer  the  question  whether  he  would 
rather  hear  Palestrina  badly  rendered  or  Zin- 
garelH  executed  to  perfection.  In  the  latter 
case  there  would  certainly  be  the  charm  of 
exquisite  voices  in  perfect  order  and  accord, 
though  the  music  were  nothing  or  worse  than 
nothing  ;  still,  our  musician  might  say,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  Palestrina  martyred  was  better 
than  Zingarelli  triumphant.  I  am  afraid  I  can 
imagine  myself  saying  :  "  Limited  country- 
people,  as  seen  by  Jane  Austen,  are  so  *  slow  ' 
that  they  rather  bore  me,  though  the  author 
has  portrayed  them  with  wonderful  skill,"  but 
I  can  hardly  fancy  myself  affirming  that  Becky 
Sharp  is  such  an  interesting  personage  that  she 
would  still  deUght  me,  even  if  the  author  of 
Ten  Thousand  a  Tear  had  written  her  history. 
On  the  other  hand  I  believe  that  the  plot  of 
Jekyll  and  Hyde  would  still  have  had  some 
fascination,  though  it  had  been  treated  by  the 
veriest  dolt  in  letters.  But  that  is  not  a  good 
example,  since  Jekyll  and  Hyde  is  certainly  in  its 
conception,  though  not  in  its  execution,  a  work 
of  fine  art.  Let  us  take  The  Moonstone  again  as  an 
example  ;  I  beUeve,  then,  that  if  the  events 
related  in  it  had  caught  our  eyes  in  a  brief 
newspaper  paragraph  they  would  still  have 
interested. 

It  seems  to  me  that,  after  all,  this  question  of 


6o  Hieroglyphics 

artifice,  of  "  how  the  thing  is  done,"  comes  under 
the  same  category  as  hking  and  dishking.  I  mean 
it  is  largely  a  matter  of  the  personal  equation, 
about  which  no  very  strict  laws  can  be  laid  down. 
You  might  say,  for  example,  that  Becky  would 
entertain  you  in  any  hands,  however  indifferent, 
provided  that  her  "  facts  "  were  preserved,  and 
I  don't  see  that  I  could  argue  the  point  with  you. 
It  reminds  me  again  of  the  way  in  which  men 
choose  their  friends ;  one  lays  stress  on  pleasant 
manners,  another  on  sterling  goodness  of 
character,  a  third  on  wit,  a  fourth  on  distinction 
of  some  kind  ;  and  argument  is  really  voiceless. 
"  Here  is  a  bookcase,"  you  may  say,  "  look  how 
exquisitely  it  is  made."  Yes,  but  I  don't  want  a 
bookcase  ;  whereas  that  table,  rickety  as  it  is, 
will  be  really  useful.  But  if  you  were  to  say  : 
"  Look  at  Westminster  Abbey,"  you  can  hardly 
imagine  my  answering  :  "  Bother  Westminster 
Abbey  ;  I  want  a  pig-sty."  You  see  how,  here 
again,  we  come  to  the  generic  difference  between 
fine  literature  and  interesting  reading-matter. 
We  read  the  Odyssey  because  we  are  super- 
natural, because  we  hear  in  it  the  echoes  of  the 
eternal  song,  because  it  symbolises  for  us  certain 
amazing  and  beautiful  things,  because  it  is 
music  ;  we  read  Miss  Austen  and  Thackeray 
because  we  like  to  recognise  the  faces  of  our 
friends  aptly  reproduced,   to  see  the   external 


Hieroglyphics  6 1 

face  of  humanity  so  deftly  mimicked,  because 
we  are  natural.  The  question  of  our  preference 
for  one  over  the  other  is,  making  due  allowance 
for  analogy,  the  question  of  our  preference  for  a 
table  over  a  bookcase  or  vice  versa,  and  the 
workmanship  in  each  case  is  largely  a  matter  of 
detail.  And  the  great  poem  may  be  equated 
with  the  great  church  :  each  is  made  for  beauty, 
the  one  is  ecstasy  in  words,  the  other  ecstasy  in 
stone.  But  the  church  and  the  pig-sty,  on  the 
other  hand,  are  not  to  be  compared  together  : 
incidentally,  no  doubt,  the  former  is  rainproof 
or  in  ill  repair,  has  good  or  bad  acoustic  pro- 
perties, while  the  latter  may  be  either  an  aesthetic 
pest  in  the  back-yard  or  an  agreeable-looking 
little  shed  enough.  Still,  the  essence  of  the 
church  is  beauty,  ecstasy  ;  of  the  sty  utiUty, 
the  safe  keeping  of  pigs.  It  would  be  absurd, 
you  see,  to  say,  "  I  prefer  an  abbey  to  a  pig-sty," 
and  it  would  be  equally  absurd  to  say,  "  I 
prefer  the  CEdipus  to  Pride  and  Prejudice  "  or  "  I 
prefer  the  Venus  of  the  Louvre  to  the  wax- 
figures  in  the  exhibition."  Of  course  these  are 
only  analogies,  and  you  mustn't  press  them,  but 
they  may  help  to  make  my  meaning  clearer,  to 
enforce  the  vast  distinction  between  art  and 
artifice.  Please  don't  think  that  I  wish  to 
estabhsh  a  proportion  :  as  a  pig-sty  is  to  an 
abbey,  so  is  Jane  Austen  to  Sophocles.     In  her 


62  Hieroglyphics 

case  you  would  have  to  substitute  a  neat  Geor- 
gian house  for  "  pig-sty  "  and  then  I  think  you 
would  have  a  very  fair  proportion.  But  all  that 
I  wanted  to  do  was  to  draw  the  line  between 
things  made  for  use,  to  occupy  some  definite 
place  in  relation  to  our  common  daily  life  ;  and 
things  made  by  ecstasy  and  for  ecstasy,  things 
that  are  symbols,  proclaiming  the  presence  of 
the  unknown  world. 

And  I  chose  Pickwick  as  the  antithesis  to 
Vanity  Fair  deliberately.  Thackeray  (in  my 
private  judgment)  is  the  chief  of  those  who  have 
provided  interesting  reading-matter  ;  Dickens  is 
by  no  means  in  the  first  rank  of  literary  artists. 
I  think  he  is  golden,  but  he  is  very  largely 
alloyed  with  baser  stuff,  with  indifferent  metal, 
which  was  the  product  of  his  age,  of  his  circum- 
stances in  life,  of  his  own  uncertain  taste.  Just 
contrast  the  atmosphere  which  surrounded  the 
young  Sophocles  with  that  in  which  the  young 
Dickens  flourished.  Both  were  men  of  genius, 
but  one  grew  up  in  the  City  of  the  Violet 
Crown,  the  other  in  Camden  Town  and  worse 
places,  one  was  accustomed  to  breathe  that 
"  most  pellucid  air,"  the  other  inhaled  the 
"  London  particular."  The  wonder  is,  not  that 
there  are  faults  in  Dickens,  but  that  there  is 
genius  of  any  kind.  I  am  not  going  to  analyse 
Pickwick  any  more  than  I  analysed  Vanity  Fair^ 


Hieroglyphics  63 

but  of  course  you  see  that,  in  its  conception,  it  is 
essentially  one  with  the  Odyssey.  It  is  a  book  of 
wandering  ;  you  start  from  your  own  doorstep 
and  you  stray  into  the  unknown  ;  every  turn 
of  the  road  fills  you  with  surmise,  every  little 
village  is  a  discovery,  a  something  new,  a 
creation.  You  know  not  what  may  happen 
next ;  you  are  journeying  through  another 
world.  I  need  not  remind  you  how  glorious  all 
this  is  in  the  Odyssey,  which  of  course  is  so  much 
more  beautiful  than  Pickwick,  as  that  glowing 
Mediterranean  Sea,  whose  bounds  on  every 
side  were  mystery,  is  more  beautiful  than 
the  muddy,  foggy  Thames,  as  those  rolling 
hexameters  are  more  beautiful  than  Dickens's 
prose  ;  and  yet  in  each  case  the  symbol  is,  in 
reality,  the  same  ;  both  the  heroic  song  of  the 
old  Ionian  world  and  the  comic  cockney  romance 
of  1837  communicate  that  enthralling  impression 
of  the  unknown,  which  is,  at  once,  a  whole 
philosophy  of  life,  and  the  most  exquisite  of 
emotions.  In  varying  degrees  of  intensity  you 
will  trace  it  all  through  fine  literature  in  every 
age  and  in  every  nation  ;  you  will  find  it  in 
Celtic  voyages,  in  the  Eastern  Tale,  where  a  door 
in  a  dull  street  suddenly  opens  into  dreamland, 
in  the  mediaeval  stories  of  the  wandering 
knights,  in  Don  Quixote,  and  at  last  in  our 
Pickwick,  where  Ulysses  has  become  a  retired  City 


64  Hieroglyphics 

man,  whimsically  journeying  up  and  down  the 
England  of  eighty  years  ago.  You  talk  of  the 
"  grotesquerie  "  of  Pickwick,  but  don't  you  see 
that  this  element  is  present  in  all  the  master- 
pieces of  the  kind  ?  Remember  the  Cyclops, 
remember  the  grotesque  shapes  that  decorate  the 
Arabian  Nights,  remember  the  bizarre  element, 
the  almost  wanton  grotesquerie  of  many  of  the 
Arthur  romances.  In  all  these  cases  as  in  Pick- 
wick the  same  result  is  obtained ;  an  overpowering 
impression  of  "  strangeness,"  of  remoteness,  of 
withdrawal  from  the  common  ways  of  life. 
Pickwick  is,  in  no  sense,  or  in  no  valuable  sense, 
a  portrayal,  a  copy,  an  imitation  of  life  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  "  imitation  "  and  "  life  "  ; 
Pickwick,  and  Sam,  and  Jingle,  and  the  rest  of 
them  are  not  clever  reproductions  of  actual 
people  (is  there  any  more  foolish  pursuit  than 
that  of  disputing  about  the  "  original "  of 
Mr.  Pickwick  ?)  ;  the  book  is  rather  the  sugges- 
tion of  another  life,  beneath  our  own  or  beside 
our  own,  and  the  characters,  those  queer 
grotesque  people,  are  queer  for  the  same  reason 
that  the  Cyclops  is  queer  and  the  dwarfs  and 
dragons  of  mediaeval  romance  are  queer.  We 
are  withdrawn  from  the  common  ways  of  life  ; 
and  in  that  withdrawal  is  the  beginning  of 
ecstasy.  There  are  sentences  in  Pickwick 
that    give  me  an    almost    extravagant  delight. 


Hierog/yp  hies  6  5 

You  remember  the  lines  about  the  Lotus- 
Eaters. 

T<2v  5'  ocTTts  AwTOio  cfidyoL  fi€X.i,rj8ea  /capTrov, 
ovKer'  aTrayyelXai  irdkLv  i^^eAev  ovSk  veecrOai 
aAA.'  avTOv  /3ovX.ovTO  fier'  a.v8pd<rL  AcoTOc^ayotcriv 
KtiiTov  epeTTTOfievoi  fi€vifi.ev  vocttov  re  Xadka-Qai. 

Well,  do  you  know  there  is  a  brief  dialogue  in 
Pickwick  that  seems  almost  as  enchanted,  to  me. 
The  scene  is  the  manor-farm  kitchen,  on 
Christmas  Eve. 

"  '  How  it  snows,'  said  one  of  the  men,  in  a 
low  voice. 

*'  '  Snows,  does  it  ?  '  said  Wardle. 

"  '  Rough,  cold  night,  sir,'  replied  the  man, 
'  and  there's  a  wind  got  up  that  drifts  it  across 
the  fields,  in  a  thick  white  cloud.' 

"  '  What  does  Jem  say  ?  '  inquired  the  old 
lady.  '  There  ain't  anything  the  matter,  is 
there  ?  ' 

"  '  No,  no,  mother,'  repUed  Wardle  ;  '  he 
says  there's  a  snow-drift,  and  a  wind  that's 
piercing  cold.'  " 

You  know  this  is  the  introduction  to  the  Tale 
of  Gabriel  Grub,  an  admirable  legend  which 
Dickens  "  farsed "  with  an  obtrusive  moral. 
But  I  confess  that  the  atmosphere  (which  to  me 
seems  all  the  wild  weather  and  the  wild  legend  of 

E 


66  Hieroglyphics 

the  north)  suggested  by  those  phrases  "  a  thick 
white  cloud,"  and  "a  wind  that's  piercing  cold,"  is 
in  my  judgment  wholly  marvellous.  But  Dickens, 
of  course,  is  full  of  impressions  which  never 
become  expressions.  You  remember  that  chapter 
about  the  lawyer's  clerks  in  the  "  Magpie  and 
Stump  "  ?  It  is  always  quite  pathetic  to  me 
to  note  how  Dickens  felt  the  strangeness,  the 
mystery,  the  haunting  that  are  like  a  mist  about 
the  old  Inns  of  Court,  and  how  utterly  unable 
he  was  to  express  his  emotion — to  find  a  fit 
symbol  for  his  meaning.  He  takes  refuge,  as  it 
were,  behind  Jack  Bamber,  who  tells  two  very 
insignificant  legends  as  to  the  mystery  of  the 
Inns.  Dickens  feels  that  these  legends  are 
insignificant,  and  throws  in  one  that  is  pure 
burlesque,  and  then  changes  the  subject  in 
despair  ;  the  vague  impression  has  refused  to  be 
put  into  words  ;  probably,  indeed,  it  had 
stopped  short  of  becoming  thought.  But  I  am 
afraid  that  if  I  once  begin  to  talk  about  the 
defects  and  faults  of  Dickens  I  shall  run  on  for 
ever,  and  I  think  you  will  be  able  to  find  out  his 
laches  quite  well  for  yourself.  What  I  want  to 
insist  on  is  his  sense  of  mystery,  his  withdrawal 
from  common  life,  and,  finally,  his  ecstasy.  I 
have  not  proved  my  case  up  to  the  hilt  by  a 
thorough-going  analysis  of  Pickwick,  but  I  think 
I    have    suggested    the    "  heads "    of    such    an 


Hieroglyphics  67 

analysis.  There  is  ecstasy  in  the  main  idea, 
in  the  thought  of  the  man  who  wanders  away 
from  his  famihar  streets  into  unknown  tracks  and 
lanes  and  villages,  there  is  ecstasy  in  the  con- 
ception of  all  those  queer,  grotesque  characters, 
reminders  each  one  of  the  strangeness  of  life, 
there  is  ecstasy  in  the  thought  of  the  wild 
Christmas  Eve,  of  the  fields  and  woods  scourged 
by  "  a  wind  that's  piercing  cold,"  hidden  by 
the  thick  cloud  of  snow,  there  is  ecstasy  in  that 
vague  impression  of  the  old,  dark  Inns,  of  the 
"  rotten  "  chambers  that  had  been  shut  up  for 
years  and  years.  In  a  word  :  Pickwick  is  fine 
literature. 

Well,  you've  got  what  you  wanted  ;  some  sort 
of  analysis  of  my  case  :  Pickwick  v.  Vanity  Fair  ; 
but  it  must  be  clearly  understood  that  I'm  not 
going  to  "  work  out  "  every  example.  However, 
I  am  not  sorry  that  I  have  been  led  to  go  into 
this  particular  case  rather  fully,  because  it  is  a 
typical  one,  and  we  shall  not  be  obliged  to  go 
over  the  same  ground  again.  I  mean,  that  having 
witnessed  the  dissection  of  Thackeray,  you  will 
have  no  need  to  come  to  me  for  my  judgment  of 
George  Eliot,  or  of  Anthony  Trollope,  or — to 
make  a  very  long  list  a  very  short  one — of  about 
ninety-nine  per  cent,  of  our  modern  novels. 
Yes,  you  have  mentioned  a  great  name,  and  I, 
like  you,  take  off  my  cap  to  the  man  who  has 


6  8  Hieroglyphics 

gone  on  his  way,  without  caring  for  the  "  public,'* 
or  the  "  reviewers,"  or  anything  else,  except  his 
own  judgment  of  what  is  right.  But,  frankly, 
if  you  pass  from  the  man  and  come  to  his  work, 
my  plain  opinion  is  this  :  that  he  has  written 
about  ordinary  life,  regarded  from  an  ordinary 
standpoint,  in  a  style  which  is  extraordinary 
certainly,  but  very  far  from  beautiful.  It  is  not 
a  beautiful  style,  since  a  fine  style,  though  it  may 
carry  suggestion  beyond  the  bourne  of  thought, 
though  it  may  be  the  veil  and  visible  body  of  con- 
cealed mysteries,  is  always  plain  on  the  surface.  It 
may  be  like  an  ingeniously  devised  cryptogram, 
which  may  have  an  occult  sense  conveyed  to  initi- 
ated eyes  in  every  dot  and  line  and  flourish,  but 
is  outwardly  as  simple  and  straightforward  as  a 
business  letter.  But  in  the  works  of  the  writer 
whom  we  are  discussing,  obscurities,  dubieties 
of  all  kinds  are  far  from  uncommon  ;  and  in 
many  of  his  books  there  are  passages  which 
hardly  seem  to  be  English  at  all.  The  words  are 
familiar — most  of  them — the  grammatical  con- 
struction often  offers  no  very  considerable 
difficulties — it  is  rarely,  I  mean,  that  one  has  to 
search  very  long  for  the  nominative  of  the 
sentence — but  when  one  has  read  the  words  and 
parsed  them,  one  feels  inclined  to  think  that 
after  all  the  passage  is  not  in  English  but  in  some 
other  language  with  a  superficial  resemblance  to 


Hieroglyphics  69 

English.  Style  is  not  everything  ?  Certainly  not  ; 
a  book  may  fail  in  style,  and  yet  be  fine,  though 
not  the  finest  literature.  You  have  only  to  open 
Sir  Walter  Scott  to  have  highly  conclusive 
evidence  on  that  point.  But  the  writer  we  are 
considering  not  only  fails  in  the  body  of  art  but 
even  more  conspicuously  in  the  soul  of  it.  Just 
think  for  a  moment  of  his  story  of  the  very 
earnest  Jew  who  fell  in  love  with  the  baroness 
who  was  not  very  earnest.  There  was  a  false 
female  friend,  you  remember,  and  social  com- 
plications perturbed  the  hearts  of  the  curiously 
assorted  lovers,  and  finally  the  Jew  was  shot  in  a 
duel  by  another,  less  "  detrimental,"  courtier. 
Can  you  conceive  anything  more  trivial  than 
this  ?  Don't  you  see  that  from  such  a  book  as 
that  the  idea^  the  soul  of  fine  literature,  is 
completely  lacking  ?  Great  books  may  always 
be  summed  up  in  a  phrase,  often  in  a  single  word, 
and  that  phrase  or  that  word  will  always  signify 
some  primary  and  palmary  idea.  To  me  the 
only  "  idea  "  suggested  by  the  plot  I  have  out- 
lined is  unimportance  ;  and,  as  in  the  case  of 
Thackeray,  ecstasy  is  entirely  absent  both  from 
this  and  from  all  other  of  the  author's  books. 
You  say  that,  after  all,  the  plot  in  question  is  a 
plot  of  the  love  of  a  man  for  a  woman,  and  that 
that  is  an  idea  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word, 
and  an  idea  which  is  the  most  of  all  fit  for  the 


yo  Hieroglyphics 

purpose  and  the  making  of  the  finest  literature. 
I  agree  with  you  in  the  latter  clause  of  your 
sentence,  but  I  must  point  out  that  the  book  is 
not  the  story  of  the  love  of  a  man  for  a  woman, 
it  is  the  story  of  the  flirtation  of  a  baroness  with 
a  German  Jew  Socialist — a  very  different 
matter.  In  a  word,  it  is  a  tale  of  the  accidental, 
of  the  particular,  of  the  inessential ;  it  is  com- 
pletely the  play  of  Hamlet  with  the  part  of 
Hamlet  omitted,  and  the  greatest  stress  laid  on 
the  minor  characters. 

It  is  quite  true  that  when  an  author  writes  a 
romance  containing  a  hero  and  a  heroine  he 
must  tell  you  who  they  are,  he  must  give,  briefly 
and  succinctly,  the  necessary  details — names, 
ages,  conditions  and  so  forth — but  if  he  is  a  great 
author  he  will  do  this  incidentally  and  make  us 
feel  that  such  details  are  incidental.  In  short, 
he  must  poise  his  feet  on  earth,  but  his  way  is 
to  the  stars.  Think  of  The  Scarlet  Letter^  open  it 
again  and  see  how  admirably  Hawthorne  has 
omitted  a  world  of  inessential  details  that  a 
lesser  man  would  have  put  in.  He  has  left  out 
a  whole  encyclopaedia  of  useless  and  tedious 
information  ;  there  is  the  dim,  necessary  back- 
ground of  time  and  place,  but  in  reality  the 
scene  is  Eternity,  and  the  drama  is  the  Mystery 
of  Love  and  Vengeance  and  Hell-fire.  Of 
course  fine  literature  must  have  its  gross  and 


Hieroglyphics  7  ^ 

carnal  body,  we  must  know  "  who's  who,"  for  I 
don't  think  an  old-fashioned  recipe  that  I 
remember  was  ever  very  successful.  Oh,  you 
must  have  read  some  of  the  tales  I  mean  ;  they 
used  to  flourish  in  the  old  Keepsakes,  and  the 
hero  was  boldly  labelled  "  Fernando  "  for  all 
distinction  and  description.  One  might  surmise 
that  Fernando  was  domiciled  on  the  continent 
of  Europe,  but  that  was  all.  It  was  not  success- 
ful, this  well-meaning  school  of  fiction,  and  I 
repeat  that  the  finest  literature  must  have  its 
accidents — it  cannot  exist  as  shining  substance 
alone.  It  is  just  the  same  with  the  art  of 
sculpture,  with  the  art  of  painting.  You  cannot 
look  at  a  Greek  Apollo  without  looking  at  that 
part  of  the  body  which  conceals  the  bowels,  but 
I  imagine  you  don't  want  to  treasure  this  thought 
or  to  insist  on  it  ?  And  I  suppose  a  geologist, 
looking  at  a  picture,  could  tell  you  whether  those 
wild  and  terrible  rocks  were  volcanic  or  car- 
boniferous ;  but  really  one  doesn't  want  to 
know.  Bowels,  geological  formation,  in  sculpture 
and  painting,  the  social  position  of  the  characters 
and  all  other  such  details  in  fine  literature  are 
inessential ;  and  the  great  artist  will,  as  I  said, 
make  us  feel  that  they  are  inessential.  If  you 
want  an  instance  of  what  I  mean  read  a  book 
which  is  very  comparable  with  the  German- 
Jew-Baroness  tale  that  we  were  talking  about. 


72  Hieroglyphics 

I  mean  Two  on  a  lower  by  Thomas  Hardy.  In 
that  you  have  the  contrast  of  social  ranks  :  the 
"  two "  are  the  lady  of  the  manor  and  an 
educated  peasant,  but  how  utterly  all  thought  of 
"  society  "  (in  any  sense  of  the  word)  disappears 
from  those  wonderful  pages,  as  you  advance  and 
find  that  the  theme  is  really  Love.  Why  even 
the  accidents  are  glorified  and  are  made  of  the 
essence  of  the  book.  The  old  tower  standing  in 
the  midst  of  lonely,  red  ploughlands  far  from 
the  highway  is  at  first  only  the  convenient  place 
where  the  young  peasant  studies  astronomy ; 
but  as  you  read  you  feel  the  change  coming,  the 
tower  is  transmuted,  glorified  ;  every  stone  of 
it  is  aglow  with  mystic  light ;  it  is  made  the 
abode  of  the  Lover  and  the  Beloved,  it  is  seen  to 
be  a  symbol  of  Love,  of  an  ecstasy,  remote,  and 
passionate,  and  eternal,  dwelling  far  from  the 
ways  of  men.  Compare  these  two  books,  I  say 
again,  and  you  will  know  the  chief  distinction 
between  fine  literature  and  reading-matter.  To 
me,  I  confess,  the  "  Jew-book  "  has  not  even 
interest  of  the  lower  sort,  not  by  any  means  the 
interest  of  Thackeray,  or  Jane  Austen  or  even  of 
poor,  dreary,  draggle-tailed  George  Eliot ;  but  if 
you  are  amused  by  it,  I  have  no  objection  to 
make.  You  may  be  amused  by  the  plates  of  the 
"  Spring  and  Summer  Novelties "  in  the  ladies' 
paper,   if   you   please  ;    but   for   heaven's   sake 


Hieroglyphics  12> 

don't  come  here  and  tell  me  that  on  the  whole 
you  prefer  BotticelH's  Primavera  !  Nay,  but 
the  fashion-plates  are  sometimes  very  nicely 
done,  and  they  put  in  backgrounds,  and  they  are 
trying  to  give  the  faces  some  character.  Do 
get  it  into  your  head — firmly  and  fixedly — that 
the  camera  and  the  soul  of  man  are  two  en- 
tirely different  things. 

You  think  the  "  photographic  "  comparison 
unfair,  in  this  and  other  instances,  because  of 
the  mechanical  element  in  photography,  because 
of  that  camera  I  have  just  mentioned  ?  Well, 
I  suppose  that  it  is  a  httle  misleading.  The 
sun  and  the  camera  between  them  certainly  do 
your  picture  for  you,  and  as  you  urge,  there  is 
more  of  artifice  in  the  merest  Sunday-school 
tale  than  in  the  best  of  photographs.  Still,  you 
must  remember  that  photography  too  has  its 
artifice,  its  choice  of  the  right  and  the  wrong 
way,  and  its  exercise  of  judgment  ;  there  is  a 
great  deal  in  it  that  is  not  mechanical  ;  and  in 
its  essence  it  is  of  the  same  class  as  the  books  I 
have  been  alluding  to.  The  means  employed  are 
different,  and  a  higher  and  finer  artifice  is 
required  for  making  books  than  for  taking 
photographs,  but  the  end  of  each  is  the  same, 
and  that  end  is  to  portray  the  surface  of  life,  to 
make  a  picture  of  the  outside  of  things.  It  is  on 
this  ground  that  I  defend  my  use  of  the  analogy, 


74  Hieroglyphics 

and  you  must  understand  me  to  speak  only  of  the 
object  which  is  common  to  each,  when  I  com- 
pare the  secondary  writer  to  a  photographer. 
The  writers,  to  be  sure,  have  invention  in  a 
greater  or  less  degree,  but  you  will  remark  that 
the  artists  in  literature  have  the  power  of 
creation,  a  totally  different  process.  Invention 
is  the  finding  of  a  thing  in  its  more  or  less 
obscure  hiding-place  ;  creation  is  the  making 
of  a  new  thing,  the  invocation  of  Something 
from  Nothingness.  Don  Quixote  is  a  creation, 
the  clergyman  in  Pride  and.  Prejudice  is  an 
invention ;  Colonel  Newcome  is,  in  all  prob- 
ability, a  composite  portrait,  while  the  Jew- 
Socialist  who  fell  in  love  with  the  Baroness  is 
simply  a  portrait  of  Ferdinand  Lassalle. 

You  must  remember  that  while  the  two  classes 
— fine  literature  and  reading-matter — differ  the 
one  from  the  other  generically,  the  individuals  of 
each  class  differ  from  each  other  only  specifically. 
Thus  the  difference  in  merit  between  the 
Odyssey  and  Pickwick  is  enormous,  but  it  is  a 
specific  difference.  In  the  same  way  it  is  hard 
to  measure  with  the  imagination  the  difference 
between  Madame  Bovary  and  that  famous 
Sunday-school  story  Jackie^s  Holiday :  the 
former  is  immensely  clever,  the  latter  is  im- 
mensely silly  ;  but  the  two  are,  emphatically,  of 
the  same  genus.      In  each  case  the  effort  of  the 


Hieroglyphics  75 

author  is  to  "  describe  life,"  the  aim  of  Flaubert 
is  absolutely  identical  with  the  aim  of  Miss 
Flopkins,  and  their  results  differ  only  as  the 
Frenchman  differs  from  the  Englishwoman,  the 
one  being  a  serious  and  patient  artificer  while 
the  other  is  a  bungling  idiot,  who  obtrudes  her 
very  empty  personality  and  her  very  trashy 
ethics  instead  of  studiously  concealing  them. 
Still  :  a  photograph  taken  in  the  most  famous 
studio  in  London  is  still  a  photograph  equally 
with  the  spotted  and  misty  effort  of  the  amateur, 
and  no  amount  of  "  touching-up  "  or  "  finish- 
ing," however  patient  it  may  be,  will  turn  a 
photograph  into  a  work  of  art.  And,  in  like 
manner,  no  labour,  no  care,  no  polishing  of  the 
phrase,  no  patience  in  investigation,  no  artifice  in 
plot  or  in  construction  will  ever  make  "  reading- 
matter  "  into  fine  literature. 


Ill 


1SEE  that  I  shall  be  obliged  to  keep  on 
reiterating  the  difference  between  fine 
literature  and  "  literature,"  or  in  other 
words  between  art  and  observation  expressed 
with  artifice.  I  am  afraid  that,  in  your  heart  of 
hearts,  you  still  believe  that  the  Odyssey  is  fine 
literature,  and  that  Pride  and  Prejudice  is  fine 
literature,  though  the  Odyssey  is  "  better  "  than 
Pride  and  Prejudice.  It  is  that  "  better  "  that 
I  want  to  get  out  of  your  head,  that  monstrous 
fallacy  of  comparing  Westminster  Abbey  with  the 
charming  old  houses  in  Queen  Square.  You 
would  see  the  absurdity  of  imagining  that  there 
can  be  any  degree  of  comparison  between  two 
things  entirely  different,  if  I  substituted  for 
Pride  and  Prejudice  some  ordinary  circulating- 
library  novel  of  our  own  times.  At  least  I  hope 
you  would  see,  though,  as  I  told  you  a  few  weeks 
ago,  I  doubt  very  much  whether  many  people 
realise  the  distinction  between  the  Odyssey  and 
a  political  pamphlet.  The  general  opinion,  I 
expect,  is  that  both  belong  to  the  same  class, 
though  the  Greek  poem  is  much  more  "  im- 

76 


Hieroglyphics  77 

portant "  than  the  pamphlet.  I  think  we 
succeeded  in  demonstrating  the  falsity  of  this 
idea,  in  showing  clearly  and  decisively  that  fine 
literature  means  the  expression  of  the  eternal 
human  ecstasy  in  the  medium  of  words,  and  that 
it  means  nothing  else  whatsoever.  Words,  it  is 
true,  are  used  for  other  ends  than  this  :  they 
are  used  in  sending  telegrams  to  stockbrokers, 
for  example,  but  why  should  this  double  office 
create  any  confusion  ?  A  tub  and  a  tabernacle 
may  each  be  made  of  wood,  but  you  don't  mix 
the  two  things  up  on  that  account.  The  other 
day  you  gave  me  a  most  amusing  account  of 
your  landlady's  quarrels  with  her  servant  girls. 
I  remember  that  I  laughed  consumedly,  and  at 
the  moment  that  solemn  preconisation  of  the 
servant  Mabel  to  the  effect  that  her  mistress, 
Mrs.  Stickings,  was  not  a  "  lydy,"  was  more  to 
my  taste  than  the  recitation  of  the  Ode  on  a 
Grecian  Urn.  But  you  surely  didn't  think  that 
you  were  making  literature  all  the  while  ?  Or 
that  the  history  of  Mrs.  Stickings  and  Mabel 
would  have  mysteriously  become  literature  if 
you  had  written  it  down  and  got  somebody  to 
print  it  ?  Or  that  it  would  have  been  literature 
if  some  of  the  details  had  been  a  little  exaggerated 
(I  thought  you  had  embroidered  here  and  there)  ; 
or  if  you  had  made  the  whole  story  up  out  of 
your  own  head  ?    Exactly,  you  were,  as  you  say, 


78  Hieroglyphics 

amusing  me  by  the  relation  of  facts  a  little 
altered,  compressed,  and  embellished,  and  I  am 
glad  that  you  see  that  no  process  of  writing  or 
printing,  no  variation  in  the  proportion  of  truth 
and  invention,  even  to  the  total  lack  of  all  truth, 
could  have  changed  an  amusing  presentation  of 
the  Stickings  menage  into  fine  literature.  But, 
surely,  it  is  so  very  obvious.  Did  any  cook  ever 
think  that  he  could  change  a  turkey  into  a  bird 
of  paradise  by  careful  attention  to  the/^rj^  and 
the  sauce  ?  The  farmer  might  as  well  expect  to 
breed  early  phoenixes  for  Leadenhall  Market 
by  the  simple  process  of  lighting  a  bonfire  in  the 
farmyard.  The  young  ducks  would  jump  into 
the  blaze,  and  the  transformation  would  be  the 
work  of  a  second  !  There  is  no  more  madness  in 
that  notion  than  in  the  other  one — that  one  has 
only  to  print  an  amusing,  interesting,  Hfe-like, 
or  pathetic  tale  to  make  it  into  fine  Hterature. 

Yes  ;  but  what  I  am  afraid  is  still  lurking 
somewhere  in  your  skull  is  this  :  that  if  only  the 
stuffing  is  extremely  well  made,  if  only  the  sauce 
is  an  exquisite  concoction,  the  turkey  zV,  somehow 
or  other,  changed  into  a  bird  of  paradise.  That  is, 
to  translate  the  analogy,  if  only  the  plot  is  very 
ingenious,  if  only  the  construction  is  well 
carried  out,  if  the  characters  are  extremely 
hfe-like,  if  the  Enghsh  is  admirably  neat  and 
sufficient,    then    reading-matter    becomes    fine 


Hieroglyphics  79 

literature.  Make  the  bonfire  high  enough  and 
your  young  ducks  will  be  burned  into  phoenixes 
fast  enough  ;  let  the  artifice  be  sufficiently 
artificial  and  it  will  be  art.  Indeed,  you  might  as 
well  maintain  that  a  wooden  statue,  if  it  be 
really  well  carved,  is  thereby  made  into  a  gold 
statue. 

Well,  I  remember  saying  one  night  that  you 
were  here  that  ecstasy  is  at  once  the  most 
exquisite  of  emotions  and  a  whole  philosophy  of 
life.  And  it  is  to  the  philosophy  of  life  that  we 
are  brought,  in  the  last  resort.  You  know  that 
there  are,  speaking  very  generally,  two  solutions 
of  existence  ;  one  is  the  materialistic  or  rational- 
istic, the  other,  the  spiritual  or  mystic.  If  the 
former  were  true,  then  Keats  would  be  a  queer 
kind  of  madman,  and  the  Morte  d' Arthur 
would  be  an  elaborate  symptom  of  insanity  ;  if 
the  latter  is  true,  then  Pride  and  Prejudice  is  not 
fine  literature,  and  the  works  of  George  Eliot  are 
the  works  of  a  superior  insect — and  nothing  more. 
You  must  make  your  choice  :  is  the  story  of  the 
Graal  lunacy,  or  not  ?  You  think  it  is  not  : 
then  do  not  talk  any  more  of  turning  glass  into 
diamonds  by  careful  polishing  and  cutting. 
Do  not  say  :  Mr  A.  spends  five  years  over  a 
book,  and  therefore  what  he  writes  is  fine 
literature  ;  Miss  B.  polishes  off  five  novels  in  a 
year,    and    therefore    she    does    not    write    fine 


8o  Hieroglyphics 

literature.  Do  not  say,  Mr.  Shorthouse  got 
the  name  of  a  man  who  kept  a  private  school  in 
the  time  of  Charles  I  quite  right  ;  therefore 
"John  Inglesant  is  fine  literature,  while  the 
archaeological  details  in  Ivanhoe  are  all  wrong, 
therefore  it  is  not  fine  literature.  Good  Lord  ! 
You  might  as  well  say  :  But  my  landlady's  name 
is  Mrs.  Stickings,  and  the  girl  (who  left  last 
month)  was  really  called  Mabel ;  therefore  that 
story  of  mine  was  fine  literature.  What's  that 
about  sustained  effort  ?  Can  you  turn  a  deal 
ladder  into  a  golden  staircase  by  making  it  of  a 
thousand  rungs  ?  What  I  say  three  times  is 
right,  eh  ?  and  if  I  tell  the  tale  of  Mrs.  Stickings 
so  that  it  extends  to  "  our  minimum  length  for 
three-volume  novels,"  it  becomes  fine  literature. 

Well,  I  really  hope  that  we  have  at  last  settled 
the  matter  ;  that  fine  literature  is  simply  the 
expression  of  the  eternal  things  that  are  in  man, 
that  it  is  beauty  clothed  in  words,  that  it  is 
always  ecstasy,  that  it  always  draws  itself  away, 
and  goes  apart  into  lonely  places,  far  from  the 
common  course  of  life.  Realise  this,  and  you  will 
never  be  misled  into  pronouncing  mere  reading- 
matter,  however  interesting,  to  be  fine  literature  ; 
and  now  that  we  clearly  understand  the  difference 
between  the  two,  I  propose  that  we  drop  the 
"  fine  "  and  speak  simply  of  literature. 

But    I    assure   you    that,    even   after   having 


Hieroglyphics  8 1 

established  the  grand  distinction,  it  is  by  no 
means  plain  sailing.  Everything  terrestrial  is  so 
composite  (except,  perhaps,  pure  music)  that 
one  is  confronted  by  an  almost  endless  task  of 
distinguishing  matter  from  form,  and  body 
from  spirit.  Literature,  we  say,  is  ecstasy,  but  a 
book  must  be  written  about  something  and  about 
somebody  ;  it  must  be  expressed  in  words,  it 
must  have  arrangement  and  artifice,  it  must  have 
accident  as  well  as  essence.  Consider  Don 
Quixote  as  an  example  ;  it  is,  I  suppose,  the 
finest  prose  romance  in  existence.  Essentially, 
it  expresses  the  eternal  quest  of  the  unknown, 
that  longing,  peculiar  to  man,  which  makes  him 
reach  out  towards  infinity  ;  and  he  lifts  up  his 
eyes,  and  he  strains  his  eyes,  looking  across  the 
ocean,  for  certain  fabled,  happy  islands,  for 
Avalon  that  is  beyond  the  setting  of  the  sun. 
And  he  comes  into  life  from  the  unknown 
world,  from  glorious  places,  and  all  his  days  he 
journeys  through  the  world,  spying  about  him, 
going  on  and  ever  on,  expecting  beyond  every 
hill  to  find  the  holy  city,  seeing  signs  and  omens 
and  tokens  by  the  way,  reminded  every  hour  of 
his  everlasting  citizenship.  "  From  the  great 
deep  to  the  great  deep  he  goes  "  :  it  is  true  of 
King  Arthur  and  of  each  one  of  us  ;  and  this, 
I  take  it,  is  the  essence  of  Don  Quixote^  and  of 
all  his  forerunners  and  successors.    Then,  in  the 


8  2  Hieroglyphics 

second  place,  you  get  the  eternal  moral  of  the 
book,  and  you  will  understand  that  I  am  not 
using  "  moral "  in  the  vulgar  sense.  The 
eternal  moral,  then,  of  Don  Quixote  is  the  strife 
between  temporal  and  eternal,  between  the  soul 
and  the  body,  between  things  spiritual  and 
things  corporal,  between  ecstasy  and  the  common 
life.  You  read  the  book  and  you  see  that  there  is 
a  perpetual  jar,  you  are  continually  confronted 
by  the  great  antinomy  of  life.  It  seems  a  mere 
comic  incident  when  the  knight  dreaming  of 
enchantment  is  knocked  about,  and  made 
ridiculous  ;  but  I  tell  you  it  is  the  perpetual 
tragedy  of  life  itself,  symbolised.  I  say  that  it  is, 
under  a  figure,  the  picture  of  humanity  in  the 
world,  that  you  will  find  the  truth  it  represents 
repeated  again  and  again  throughout  all  history. 
You  know  that  if  one  goes  back  resolutely  to  the 
first  principles  of  things,  one  finds  oneself,  as  it 
were,  in  a  place  where  all  lines  that  seemed 
parallel  and  eternally  divided  meet,  and  so  it 
is  with  this  tragedy  symbolised  by  the  Don 
Quixote.  It  is,  you  may  say,  the  tragedy  of  the 
Unknown  and  the  Known,  of  the  Soul  and 
Body,  of  the  Idea  and  the  Fact,  of  Ecstasy  and 
Common  Life  ;  at  last,  I  suppose,  of  Good  and 
Evil.  The  source  of  it  lies  far  beyond  our  under- 
standing, but  its  symbol  is  shown  again  and  again 
in  Cervantes's  page. 


Hieroglyphics  83 

Then,  there  is  a  third  element  in  the  book. 
The  author  intended  to  write  a  burlesque  on  the 
current  romances  of  chivalry  ;  and  he  wrote,  I 
suppose,  the  best  burlesque  that  has  ever  been 
written,  or  ever  will  be  written.  If  you  un- 
happily so  choose,  you  can  shut  your  eyes  to 
everything  serious  and  everything  beautiful, 
and  read  merely  of  Amadis  and  Arthur  "  taken 
off,"  of  the  highest  ideals  turned  into  nonsense, 
of  the  best  motives  shown  to  be,  in  effect, 
mischievous.  You  will  read  how  the  knight,  in 
the  approved  manner  of  knights,  helped  the 
oppressed  and  the  wretched,  and  how  he  usually 
worsened  their  condition  tenfold.  You  may 
lend  your  ear  to  Sancho,  grumbling  and  quoting 
"  common-sense  "  proverbs  all  the  road,  as  he 
rides  on  his  ass,  and  if  it  were  not  for  the  wit 
and  the  comedy,  you  might  fancy  yourself  in  a 
suburban  train  bound  for  the  City.  Why,  if  you 
so  please,  Don  Quixote  is  the  institute  of  cynicism, 
the  reduction  of  every  generous  impulse  to 
absurdity. 

Finally,  the  knight  is  the  mouthpiece  of 
Cervantes  himself,  especially  towards  the  end 
of  the  second  part,  where  the  armour  and  the 
fantasy  drop  off,  piece  by  piece,  and  shred  by 
shred,  on  that  mournful,  homeward  journey. 
At  last,  I  say,  Don  Quixote  is  almost  simply 
Cervantes,  commenting  on  men  and  affairs  in 


84  Hieroglyphics 

Spain,  and  I  think  that  in  those  final  chapters  the 
art  has  vanished  together  with  the  armour  and 
the  ecstasy.  Yes,  I  always  dread  the  ending  of 
Don  Quixote.  A  star  drops  a  line  o£  streaming 
fire  down  the  vault  of  the  sky,  and  perhaps  you 
may  have  seen  the  ugly,  shapeless  thing  that 
sinks  into  the  earth. 

But  this  very  brief  and  imperfect  analysis  of 
a  great  masterpiece  of  literary  art  may  give  you 
some  idea  of  the  extraordinary  complexity  of  all 
literature.  As  it  is  I  have  omitted  one  most 
important  item  in  the  account ;  I  have  said 
nothing  of  the  style,  because  I  am  sorry  to  say 
that  I  have  no  Spanish,  and  Cervantes  speaks  to 
me  through  an  interpreter  named  Charles  Jarvis. 
But,  omitting  style,  you  see  that  we  have,  in  this 
particular  case,  five  books  in  one  ;  we  have  the 
utterance  of  pure  ecstasy,  the  strife  between 
ecstasy  and  the  common  life,  the  burlesque  of 
chivalry,  the  institutes  of  cynicism,  and  the 
comments  on  affairs.  Each  of  these  different 
themes  is  managed  with  consummate  ability,  and 
(always  excepting  the  last  chapters  ot  the  book) 
each  keeps  its  due  place,  so  that  it  really  rests 
with  the  reader,  in  a  manner,  to  choose  which 
book  he  is  to  read. 

And  then  there  are  other  elements  which  must 
be  accounted  for  if  one  is  to  judge  a  book  as  a 
whole,    fairly   and   thoroughly.      I   may   be   so 


Hieroglyphics  8  5 

charmed  with  the  writer's  rapture,  with  the 
wonder  and  beauty  of  his  idea,  that  I  may  forget 
the  fact  that  the  artist  must  also  be  the  artificer  ; 
that  while  the  soul  conceives,  the  understanding 
must  formulate  the  conception,  that  while 
ecstasy  must  suggest  the  conduct  of  the  story, 
common  sense  must  help  to  range  each  circum- 
stance in  order,  that  while  an  inward,  mysterious 
delight  must  dictate  the  burning  phrases  and 
sound  in  the  music  and  melody  of  the  words, 
cool  judgment  must  go  through  every  line, 
reminding  the  author  that,  if  literature  be  the 
language  of  the  Shadowy  Companion,  it  must  yet 
be  translated  out  of  the  unknown  speech  into  the 
vulgar  tongue.  Here  then  we  have  the  elements 
of  a  book.  Firstly  the  Idea  or  Conception,  the 
thing  of  exquisite  beauty  which  dwells  in  the 
author's  soul,  not  yet  clothed  in  words,  nor 
even  in  thought,  but  a  pure  emotion.  Secondly, 
when  this  emotion  has  taken  definite  form,  is 
made  incarnate,  as  it  were,  in  the  shape  of  a 
story,  which  can  be  roughly  jotted  down  on 
paper,  we  may  speak  of  the  Plot.  Thirdly, 
the  plot  has  to  be  systematised,  to  be  drawn  to 
scale,  to  be  carried  out  to  its  legitimate  con- 
clusions, to  be  displayed  by  means  of  incident  ; 
and  here  we  have  Construction.  Fourthly,  the 
story  is  to  be  written  down,  and  Style  is  the 
invention  of  beautiful  words  which  shall  affect 


86  Hieroglyphics 

the  reader  by  their  meaning,  by  their  sound,  by 
their  mysterious  suggestion. 

This,  then,  is  the  fourfold  work  of  hterature,  and 
if  you  want  to  be  perfect  you  must  be  perfect  in 
each  part.  Art  must  inspire  and  shape  each  and 
all,  but  only  the  first,  the  Idea,  is  pure  art ;  with 
Plot,  and  Construction,  and  Style  there  is  an 
alloy  of  artifice.  If  then  any  given  book  can 
be  shown  to  proceed  from  an  Idea,  it  is  to  be 
placed  in  the  class  of  literature,  in  the  shelf  of  the 
Odyssey  as  I  think  I  once  expressed  it.  It  may 
be  placed  very  high  in  the  class  ;  the  more  it 
have  of  rapture  in  its  every  part,  the  higher  it  will 
be  :  or,  it  may  be  placed  very  low,  because,  for 
example,  having  once  admired  the  Conception, 
the  dream  that  came  to  the  author  from  the  other 
world,  we  are  forced  to  admit  that  the  Story  or 
Plot  was  feebly  imagined,  that  the  Construction 
was  clumsily  carried  out,  that  the  Style  is, 
aesthetically,  non-existent.  You  will  notice  that 
I  am  never  afraid  of  blaming  my  favourites,  of 
finding  fault  with  the  books  which  I  most  adore. 
I  can  do  so  freely  and  without  fear  of  con- 
sequences, since  having  once  applied  my  test,  and 
having  found  that  Pickwick,  for  example,  is 
literature,  I  am  not  in  the  least  afraid  that  I 
shall  be  compelled  to  eat  my  words  if  flaws  in 
plot  and  style  and  construction  are  afterwards 
made  apparent.     The  statue  is  gold  ;    we  have 


Hieroglyphics  8  7 

settled  that  much,  and  we  need  not  fear  that  it 
will  turn  into  lead,  if  we  find  that  the  graving 
and  camng  is  poor  enough.  Once  be  sure  that 
your  temple  is  a  temple,  and  I  will  warrant  you 
against  it  being  suddenly  transmuted  into  a  tub, 
through  the  discovery  of  scamped  workmanship. 
Well,  suppose  we  begin  to  apply  our  analysis. 
Let  us  take  the  strange  case  of  R.  L.  Steven- 
son, and  especially  his  Jekyll  and  Hyde,  which,  in 
some  ways,  is  his  most  characteristic  and  most 
effective  book.  Now  I  suppose  that  instructed 
opinion  (granting  its  existence)  was  about 
equally  divided  as  to  the  class  in  which  this 
most  skilful  and  striking  story  was  to  be  placed. 
Many,  I  have  no  doubt,  gave  it  a  very  high  place 
in  the  ranks  of  imaginative  literature,  or  (as  we 
should  now  say)  in  the  ranks  of  literature  ; 
while  many  other  judges  set  it  down  as  an 
extremely  clever  piece  of  sensationalism,  and 
nothing  more.  Well,  I  think  both  these  opinions 
are  wrong  ;  and  I  should  be  inclined  to  say  that 
Jekyll  and  Hyde  just  scrapes  by  the  skin  of  its 
teeth,  as  it  were,  into  the  shelves  of  literature, 
and  no  more.  On  the  surface  it  would  seem  to 
be  merely  sensationalism  ;  I  expect  that  when 
you  read  it  you  did  so  with  breathless  absorption, 
hurrying  over  the  pages  in  your  eagerness  to 
find  out  the  secret,  and  this  secret  once  dis- 
covered I  imagine  that  Jekyll  and  Hyde  retired 


88  Hieroglyphics 

to  your  shelf — and  stays  there,  rather  dusty. 
You  have  never  opened  it  again  ?  Exactly.  I 
have  read  it  for  a  second  time,  and  I  was 
astonished  to  find  how  it  had,  if  I  may  say  so, 
evaporated.  At  the  first  reading  one  was 
enthralled  by  mere  curiosity,  but  when  once 
this  curiosity  had  been  satisfied,  what  remained  ? 
If  I  may  speak  from  my  own  experience,  simply  a 
rather  languid  admiration  of  the  ingenuity  of  the 
plot  with  its  construction,  combined  with  a  slight 
feeling  of  impatience,  such  as  one  might  ex- 
perience if  one  were  asked  to  solve  a  puzzle  for 
the  second  time.  You  see  that  the  secret  once 
disclosed  all  the  steps  which  lead  to  the  dis- 
closure become,  ipso  facto,  insignificant,  or  rather 
they  become  nothing  at  all,  since  their  only 
significance  and  their  only  existence  lay  in  the 
secret,  and  when  the  secret  has  ceased  to  be  a 
secret,  the  signs  and  cyphers  of  it  fall  also  into 
the  world  of  nonentity.  You  may  be  amazed, 
and  perplexed,  and  entranced  by  a  cryptogram, 
while  you  are  solving  it,  but  the  solution  once 
attained,  your  cryptogram  is  either  nothing  or 
perilously  near  to  nothingness. 

Well,  all  this  points,  doesn't  it  ?  towards  mere 
sensationalism,  very  cleverly  done.  But,  as  I 
said,  I  think  Jekyll  and  Hyde  just  scrapes  over 
the  border-line  and  takes  its  place,  very  low 
down,  among  books  that  are  literature.    And  I 


Hieroglyphics  89 

base  my  verdict  solely  on  the  Idea,  on  the 
conception  that  lies,  buried  rather  deeply, 
beneath  the  plot.  The  plot,  in  itself,  strikes 
me  as  mechanical — this  actual  physical  trans- 
formation, produced  by  a  drug,  Hnked  certainly 
with  a  theory  of  ethical  change,  but  not  Hnked 
at  all  with  the  really  mysterious,  the  really 
psychical — all  this  affects  me,  I  say,  as  ingenious 
mechanism  and  nothing  more  ;  while  I  have 
shown  how  the  construction  is  ingenious 
artifice,  and  the  style  is  affected  by  the  same 
plague  of  laboured  ingenuity.  Throughout 
it  is  a  thoroughly  conscious  style,  and  in  litera- 
ture all  the  highest  things  are  unconsciously, 
or  at  least  subconsciously  produced.  It  has 
music,  but  it  has  no  under-music,  and  there  are 
no  phrases  in  it  that  seem  veils  of  dreams,  echoes 
of  the  "  inexpressive  song."  It  is  on  the  con- 
ception, then,  alone,  that  I  justify  my  inclusion 
of  Jekyll  amongst  works  of  art  ;  for  it  seems  to 
me  that,  lurking  behind  the  plot,  we  divine 
the  presence  of  an  idea,  of  an  inspiration. 
"  Man  is  not  truly  one,  but  truly  two,"  or, 
perhaps,  a  polity  with  many  inhabitants,  Dr 
Jekyll  writes  in  his  confession,  and  I  think  that 
I  see  here  a  trace  that  Stevenson  had  re- 
ceived a  vision  of  the  mystery  of  human  nature, 
compounded  of  the  dust  and  of  the  stars, 
of   a   dim   vast   city,   splendid   and   ruinous   as 


90  Hieroglyphics 

drowned  Atlantis  deep  beneath  the  waves,  of  a 
haunted  quire  where  a  flickering  Ught  burns 
before  the  Veil.  This,  I  believe,  was  the  vision 
that  came  to  the  artist,  but  the  admirable 
artificer  seized  hold  of  it  at  once  and  made  it 
all  his  own,  omitting  what  he  did  not  under- 
stand, translating  roughly  from  the  unknown 
tongue,  materialising,  coarsening,  hardening. 
Don't  you  see  how  thoroughly  'physical  the  actual 
plot  is  ?  and  if  one  escapes  for  a  moment  from 
the  atmosphere  of  the  laboratory  it  is  only  to  be 
confronted  by  the  most  obvious  vein  of  moral 
allegory  ;  and  from  this  latter  light  Jekyll  and 
Hyde  seems  almost  the  vivid  metaphor  of  a 
clever  preacher.  You  mustn't  imagine,  you 
know,  that  I  condemn  the  powder  business  as 
bad  in  itself,  for  (let  us  revert  for  a  moment  to 
philosophy)  man  is  a  sacrament,  soul  manifested 
under  the  form  of  body,  and  art  has  to  deal  with 
each  and  both  and  to  show  their  interaction  and 
interdependence.  The  most  perfect  form  of 
literature  is,  no  doubt,  lyrical  poetry,  which  is, 
one  might  say,  almost  pure  idea,  art  with 
scarcely  an  alloy  of  artifice,  expressed  in  magic 
words,  in  the  voice  of  music.  In  a  word,  a 
perfect  lyric,  such  as  Keats's  Belle  Dame  sans 
Mercy  is  almost  pure  soul,  a  spirit  with  the 
luminous  body  of  melody.  But  (in  our  age, 
at  all  events)  a  prose  romance  must  put  on  a 


Hieroglyphics  9 1 

grosser  and  more  material  envelope  than 
this,  it  must  have  incident,  corporeity,  relation 
to  material  things,  and  all  these  will  occupy  a 
considerable  part  of  the  whole.  To  a  certain 
extent,  then,  the  idea  must  be  materiaUsed, 
but  still  it  must  always  shine  through  the  fleshly 
vestment ;  the  body  must  never  be  mere  body 
but  always  the  body  of  the  spirit,  existing  to 
conceal  and  yet  to  manifest  the  spirit  ;  and  here 
it  seems  to  me  that  Stevenson's  story  breaks 
down.  The  transformation  of  Jekyll  into  Hyde 
is  solely  material  as  you  read  it,  without  artistic 
significance  ;  it  is  simply  an  astounding  incident, 
and  not  an  outward  sign  of  an  inward  mystery. 
As  for  the  possible  allegory  I  have  too  much 
respect  for  Stevenson  as  an  artificer  to  think 
that  he  would  regard  this  element  as  anything 
but  a  very  grave  defect.  Allegory,  as  Poe  so 
well  observed,  is  always  a  literary  vice,  and  we 
are  only  able  to  enjoy  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  by 
forgetting  that  the  allegory  exists.  Yes,  that 
seems  to  me  the  vitium  of  Jekyll  and  Hyde  : 
the  conception  has  been  badly  realised,  and 
by  badly  I  do  not  mean  clumsily,  because  from 
the  logical,  literal  standpoint  the  plot  and 
the  construction  are  marvels  of  cleverness  ; 
but  I  mean  inartistically  :  ecstasy,  which  as  we 
have  settled  is  the  synonym  of  art,  gave  birth 
to  the  idea,  but  immediately  abandoned  it  to 


92  Hieroglyphics 

artifice,  and  to  artifice  only,  instead  of  pre- 
siding over  and  inspiring  every  further  step  in 
plot,  in  construction,  and  in  style.  All  this 
may  seem  to  you  very  fine-drawn  and  over- 
subtle,  but  I  am  convinced  that  it  is  the  true 
account  of  the  matter,  and  perhaps  you  may 
reahse  my  theory  better  if  I  draw  out  that 
analogy  of  "  translation  "  which  I  suggested,  I 
think,  a  few  minutes  ago.  I  was  passing  along 
New  Oxford  Street  the  other  day,  and  I  hap- 
pened to  look  into  a  shop  which  displays  Bibles 
in  all  languages,  and  I  glanced  at  the  French 
version,  open  at  the  seventh  chapter  of  the 
Book  of  Proverbs.  I  saw  the  words  "  un  jeune 
homme  depourvu  de  bon  sens,"  and  then, 
lower  down,  "  comme  un  boeuf  a  la  boucherie," 
and  it  was  some  considerable  time  before  I 
reahsed  that  these  phrases  "  translated,"  "  a 
young  man  void  of  understanding,"  and  "  as  an 
ox  goeth  to  the  slaughter."  Now  you  notice 
that  these  are  in  every  way  commonplace 
examples  ;  there  is  nothing  extraordinarily 
poetical  in  either  phrase  as  it  stands  in  the 
Authorised  Version.  I  might  have  made  the 
contrast  much  more  violent  by  choosing  a 
passage  from  the  Song  of  Songs  or  Ecclesiastes ; 
and  I  wonder  how  "  Therefore  with  Angels 
and  Archangels  "  would  go  into  French.  But 
isn't   the   gulf   astounding   between    "  void   of 


Hieroglyphics  93 

understanding  "  and  "  depourvu  de  bon  sens  "  ? 
Yet  the  meaning  of  the  French  is  really  the 
same  as  the  meaning  of  the  English  ;  logically, 
I  should  think,  the  two  phrases  are  exactly 
equivalent.  And  yet  .  .  .  well,  we  know  per- 
fectly well  that  "  depourvu  de  bon  sens  "  in  no 
way  renders  that  noble  and  austere  simplicity 
that  we  reverence  in  the  English  text. 

Now,  I  think,  you  ought  to  see  what  I  have 
been  trying  to  express  about  the  gulf  that 
may  open  always  between  the  conception  and 
the  plot,  or  story,  that  does  divide  the  conception 
from  the  plot  of  Jekyll  and  Hyde.  Of  course 
the  analogy  is  not  perfect,  because  the  magnum 
chaos  that  yawns  between  the  unformulated 
idea  and  the  formulated  plot,  between  pure 
ecstasy  and  ecstasy  plus  artifice,  is  much  vaster 
than  the  distinction  between  English  and 
French,  indeed  between  the  two  former  there 
is  almost  or  altogether  the  difference  of  the 
infinite  and  the  finite,  of  soul  and  body  ;  still, 
you  see  how  a  book  is  a  rendering,  a  translation 
of  an  idea,  and  how  a  very  fine  idea  may  be 
embodied  in  a  very  mechanical  plot. 

You  remember  the  Socialist  and  Baroness 
novel  that  we  were  talking  about  the  other  night. 
We  placed  it  outside  of  literature  firstly  and 
chiefly  because  it  was  not  based  on  ecstasy,  on 
an  idea  of  any  kind,  and  secondly,  and  by  way 


94  Hieroglyphics 

of  consequence,  because  in  its  execution  and 
detail  it  was  so  thoroughly  insignificant,  because 
it  played  Hamlet  with  the  part  o£  the  Prince 
omitted.  Now  I  think  that  it  is  strong  evidence 
of  the  soundness  of  my  literary  theory  that  we 
are  enabled  by  it  to  take  two  books  so  utterly 
dissimilar  in  manner  and  method,  in  story  and 
treatment,  and  to  judge  them  both  by  the 
same  scale.  For  this  is  what  it  really  comes  to  : 
we  say  that  The  Tragic  Comedians  is  not  litera- 
ture because  it  simply  tells  of  facts  without 
their  significance,  because  it  deals  with  the 
outward  show  and  not  with  the  inward  spirit, 
because  it  is  accidental  and  not  essential. 
And  in  just  the  same  way  we  say  that  Jekyll  and 
Hyde  (its  conception  apart)  is  not  literature  inas- 
much as  it  too  has  the  body  of  a  story  without 
the  soul  of  a  story,  the  incident,  the  fact, 
without  the  inward  thing  of  which  the  fact  is  a 
symbol.  For  if  you  will  consider  the  matter 
you  will  see  that  a  fact  qua  fact  has  no  existence 
in  art  at  all.  It  is  not  the  painter's  business 
to  make  us  a  likeness  of  a  tree  or  a  rock  ;  it  is 
his  business  to  communicate  to  us  an  emotion — 
an  ecstasy,  if  you  please — and  that  he  may  do  so 
he  uses  a  tree  or  a  rock  as  a  symbol,  a  word  in 
his  language  of  colour  and  form.  It  is  not  the 
business  of  the  sculptor  to  chisel  likenesses  of 
men  in  marble  ;    the  human  form  is  to  him 


Hieroglyphics  95 

also  a  symbol  which  stands  for  an  idea.  In  the 
same  manner  it  is  not  the  business  of  the 
literary  artist  to  describe  facts — real  or  im- 
aginary— in  words  :  he  is  possessed  with  an  idea 
which  he  symbolises  by  incident,  by  a  story 
of  men  and  women  and  things.  He  is  possessed, 
let  us  say,  by  the  idea  of  Love  :  then  he  must 
write  a  story  of  lovers,  but  he  must  never  forget 
that  A.  and  B.,  his  actual  lovers  in  the  tale, 
with  their  social  positions,  their  whims  and 
fancies,  their  sayings  and  doings,  are  only  of 
consequence  in  the  degree  that  they  symbolise 
the  universal  human  passion,  which  in  its  turn 
is  a  copy  of  certain  eternal  and  ineffable  things. 
If  A.  and  B.  do  not  do  this,  then  they  are  nothing, 
and  worse  than  nothing,  so  far  as  art  is  concerned. 
"  But  my  tree  is  like  a  tree,"  says  the  dull 
painter,  and  "  My  anatomy  is  faultless,"  says 
the  bad  sculptor,  and  "  My  characters  are  life- 
like," says  the  novelist. 

And  one  can  apply  exactly  the  same  reason- 
ing to  Stevenson's  ingenious  story.  I  do  not 
know  whether  there  is,  or  has  been,  or  will  be 
a  salt  in  existence  which  can  turn  a  jnan  into 
another  person  ;  that  is  of  not  the  slightest 
consequence  to  the  argument.  The  result  of 
the  powder,  as  it  is  described  in  the  book,  is 
an  incident,  and  it  makes  no  difference  to  the 
critical  judgment  whether  the  incident  is  true 


96  Hieroglyphics 

or  false,  probable  or  improbable.  The  only 
point,  absolutely  the  only  point  is  this  :  Is  the 
incident  significant  or  insignificant,  is  it  related 
for  its  own  sake,  or  is  it  posited  because  it  is  a 
sign,  a  symbol,  a  word  which  veils  and  reveals 
the  artist's  ecstasy  and  inspiration  ?  The 
socialist  fell  in  love  with  the  baroness  :  it  is 
true,  you  say,  it  really  happened  so  in  Germany 
some  fifty  years  ago.  But  in  the  book  it 
is  insignificant.  The  doctor  took  the  powder 
and  became  another  man  ;  it  is  probably  untrue. 
But  it  is  also  insignificant ;  and  to  the  critic 
of  art  in  Uterature  the  one  incident  stands 
precisely  on  the  same  footing  as  the  other. 

And,  do  you  know,  I  am  glad  I  have  made 
this  comparison  between  Jekyll  and  Hyde  and 
The  Tragic  Comedians,  because  it  has  struck  me 
that  what  I  have  been  saying  about  the  essential 
element  of  all  literature  might  be  open  to  very 
grave  misunderstanding.  I  have  been  insisting, 
with  reiteration  that  must  have  tired  you,  that 
there  is  only  one  test  by  which  literature  may 
be  distinguished  from  mere  reading-matter,  and 
that  that  test  is  summed  up  in  the  word,  ecstasy. 
And  then  we  admitted  a  whole  string  of  syn- 
onyms— desire  of  the  unknown,  sense  of  the 
unknown,  rapture,  adoration,  mystery,  wonder, 
withdrawal  from  the  common  Hfe — and  I 
dare  say  I  have  used  many  other  phrases  in  the 


Hieroglyphics  97 

same  sense  without  giving  you  any  special 
warning  that  it  was  our  old  friend  again  in  a 
new  guise.  But  it  has  just  occurred  to  me 
that  with  all  this  wealth  of  synonyms,  I  may 
not  have  made  my  meaning  perfectly  clear.  For 
example,  while  I  was  laying  down  the  law 
about  Dr.  Jekyll's  powder  and  its  effects,  you 
might  have  interrupted  me  with  the  remark : 
"  But  I  thought  you  said  the  sense  of  wonder 
was  characteristic  of  literature  ;  and  surely  the 
change  from  Jekyll  into  Hyde  is  extremely 
wonderful."  Or  again,  when  I  was  belauding 
the  Odyssey,  dwelling  on  the  voyage  of  Ulysses 
amongst  strange  peoples,  you  might  have  put 
in  some  modern  tale  of  strange  adventure,  and 
requested  me  to  distinguish  between  the 
two,  to  justify  my  praise  of  the  old  and  re- 
jection of  the  new.  And  we  have  mentioned 
Sunday-school  books,  always,  I  think,  with  a 
certain  nuance  of  contempt  ;  but  Sunday-school 
books  usually  deal  with  religion,  and  religion 
and  adoration  are  almost  synonymous.  And 
so  one  could  go  on  with  the  list,  making  out,  on 
our  premisses,  with  our  own  test,  a  plausible 
case  for  books  which  we  know  very  well  are 
neither  literature  nor  anything  remotely  ap- 
proaching it.  And  that  would  look  rather  like 
the  collapse  of  our  literary  case,  wouldn't 
it  ? 


98  Hieroglyphics 

Well,  the  solution  of  the  difficulty  seems  to  me 
to  be  sought  for  in  the  remarks  I  was  making 
just  now  about  "  facts  "  in  art.  I  said,  you 
remember,  that,  in  art,  facts  as  facts  have  no 
existence  at  all.  Facts,  incidents,  plots,  simply 
form  the  artistic  speech — its  mode  of  expression, 
or  medium — and  if  there  is  no  idea  behind  the 
facts,  then  you  have  no  longer  language  but 
gibberish.  Just  as  language  is  made  up  of  the 
letters  of  the  alphabet,  arranged  in  significant 
words  and  sentences,  so  is  the  artistic  language 
made  up  of  plots,  incidents,  sentences  which 
are  informed  with  significance.  If  I  heap  up 
letters  of  the  alphabet,  and  arrange  them  in  an 
arbitrary  collocation,  without  meaning,  I  am 
forming  gibberish,  and  not  a  language  ;  and 
so  if  I  pepper  my  pages  with  extraordinary 
incidents,  without  attaching  to  them  any 
significance,  I  am  writing,  it  may  be,  an  ex- 
citing, absorbing,  interesting  book,  but  I  am 
not  making  literature.  Indeed,  some  of  the  books 
that  might  be  mentioned  in  this  connection 
remind  me  of  a  man  swearing  :  he  uses  the 
holiest  names,  but  he  does  so  in  such  a  manner 
that  he  excites  not  reverence  and  awe  but 
disgust  and  repulsion.  Tell  the  bare  "  plot  "  of 
the  Odyssey  to  one  of  these  writers,  and  hint 
that  it  might  be  made  into  a  "  successful 
Christmas  book  for  boys,"  and  he  will  produce 


Hieroglyphics  99 

you  a  book  which  will  contain  the  Lotus-Eaters, 
and  Calypso  and  the  Cyclops,  but  which  will 
have  just  the  same  relation  to  literature  as 
blasphemy  bears  to  the  Liturgy.  That  seems 
to  me  the  explanation  ;  one  must  say  again 
that  mere  incident  is  nothing,  that  it  only 
becomes  something  when  it  is  a  symbol  of  an 
interior  meaning.  And,  turning  this  maxim 
inside  out,  as  it  were,  we  shall  sometimes  find 
that  a  book  which  seems  on  the  surface  to 
be  "  reading-matter  "  is  really  literature,  and 
incidents,  apparently  insignificant,  may  turn 
out,  on  a  closer  examination,  to  be  significant 
and  symbolic  in  a  very  high  degree.  So  I  don't 
think  our  literary  criterion  is  in  any  way  in- 
validated by  the  occurrence  of  surprising  in- 
cidents in  very  worthless  books.  Look  at 
Mr.  Isaacs,  for  example.  In  a  sense  it  is  a  "  won- 
derful "  book,  inasmuch  as  it  contains  incidents 
which  are  far  removed  from  common  ex- 
perience ;  but  you  have  only  to  read  it  to 
discover  that  the  author  had  not  been  visited 
by  any  inspiration  of  the  unseen.  One  may  trace 
some  acquaintance  with  theosophical  "  litera- 
ture," but  not  even  the  dimmest  vision  of  "  the 
other  things."  The  "  other  things  "  ?  Ah, 
that  is  another  synonym,  but  who  can  furnish 
a  precise  definition  of  the  indefinable  ?  They 
are  sometimes  in  the  song  of  a  bird,  sometimes 


I  oo  Hieroglyphics 

in  the  scent  of  a  flower,  sometimes  in  the  whirl 
of  a  London  street,  sometimes  hidden  under  a 
great  lonely  hill.  Some  of  us  seek  them  with 
most  hope  and  the  fullest  assurance  in  the  sacring 
of  the  Mass,  others  receive  tidings  through  the 
sound  of  music,  in  the  colour  of  a  picture,  in  the 
shining  form  of  a  statue,  in  the  meditation  of 
eternal  truth.  Do  you  know  that  I  can  never 
hear  a  jangling  piano-organ  contending  with 
the  roar  of  traffic  without  the  tears — not 
of  feeling  but  of  emotion — coming  to  my 
eyes  ? 

And  that  instance — it  is  grotesque  enough — 
reminds  me  that  I  think  I  have  an  explanation 
of  another  puzzle  that  has  often  perplexed  me, 
and  I  dare  say  has  perplexed  you.  Do  you  re- 
member the  books  that  you  read  when  you 
were  a  boy  ?  I  can  think  of  stories  that  I  read 
long  ago  (I  have  forgotten  the  very  names  of 
them)  that  filled  me  with  emotions  that  I 
recognised,  afterwards,  as  purely  artistic.  The 
sorriest  pirate,  the  most  wretchedly  concealed 
treasure,  poor  Captain  Mayne  Reid  at  his 
boldest  gave  me  then  the  sensations  that  I  now 
search  for  in  the  Odyssey  or  in  the  thought  of 
it ;  and  I  looked  into  some  of  these  shabby  old 
tales  years  afterwards,  and  wondered  how  on 
earth  I  had  managed  to  penetrate  into  "  faery 
lands  forlorn  "  through  such  miserable  stucco 


Hieroglyphics  i  o  i 

portals.  And  you,  you  say,  extracted,  somehow 
or  other,  from  Harrison  Ainsworth's  Lancashire 
Witches^  that  essence  of  the  unknown  that  you 
now  find  in  Poe  ;  and  I  expect  that  everybody 
who  loves  literature  could  gather  similar  re- 
collections. 

Well,  it  would  be  easy  enough  to  solve  the 
problem  by  saying  that  the  emotions  of  children 
are  of  no  consequence  and  don't  count,  but 
then  I  don't  think  that  proposition  is  true.  I 
think,  on  the  contrary,  that  children,  especially 
young  children  before  they  have  been  defiled 
by  the  horrors  of  "  education,"  possess  the 
artistic  emotion  in  remarkable  purity,  that  they 
reproduce,  in  a  measure,  the  primitive  man 
before  he  was  defiled,  artistically,  by  the  horrors 
of  civilisation.  The  ecstasy  of  the  artist  is 
but  a  recollection,  a  remnant  from  the  childish 
vision,  and  the  child  undoubtedly  looks  at  the 
world  through  "  magic  casements."  But  you 
see  all  this  is  unconscious  or  subconscious  (to  a 
less  degree  it  is  so  in  later  life,  and  artists  are 
rare  simply  because  it  is  their  almost  impossible 
task  to  translate  the  emotion  of  the  subcon- 
sciousness into  the  speech  of  consciousness), 
and  as  you  may  sometimes  see  children  uttering 
their  conceptions  in  words  that  are  nonsense, 
or  next  door  to  it,  so  nonsense  or  at  any  rate 
very  poor  stuii  suflBces  with  them  to  summon 


I  o  2  Hieroglyphics 

up   the   vision   from   the   depths   of  the   soul. 
Suppose  we  could  catch  a  genius  at  the  age  of 
nine  or  ten  and  request  him  to  utter  what  he 
felt  ;    the  boy  would  speak  or  write  rubbish, 
and  in  the  same  way  you  would  find  that  he 
read   rubbish,   and  that  it   excited  in  him  an 
ineflFable    joy    and    ecstasy,      Coleridge    was    a 
Bluecoat  boy  when  he  read  the  "  poems  "  of 
Wilham   Lisle   Bowles,   and   admired   them   to 
enthusiasm,  and  I  am  quite  sure  that  at  some 
early  period  Poe  had  been  enraptured  by  Mrs. 
Radcliffe,    and   we   know   how   Burns   founded 
himself  on  Fergusson.     When  men  are  young, 
the  inward  ecstasy,  the  "  red  powder  of  pro- 
jection," is  of  such  efficacy  and  virtue  that  the 
grossest   and   vilest   matter   is   transmuted   for 
them   into   pure  gold,   glistering   and   glorious 
as  the  sun.    The  child  (and  with  him  you  may 
link  all  primitive  and  childlike  people)  approaches 
books  and  pictures  just  as  he  approaches  nature 
itself  and  Ufe  ;    and  a  wonderful  vision  appears 
where  many  of  us  can  only  see  the  common 
and  insignificant. 

But  all  this  has  been  a  digression  ;  it  has  come 
by  the  way  in  a  talk  about  worthless  and  insignifi- 
cant books.  But  I  think  that  we  should  by  this 
time  have  brought  our  testing  apparatus  into 
working  order  ;  we  should  be  able  to  criticise 
any  given  book  on  some  ground  or  principle, 


Hieroglyphics  1 03 

not  on  the  rule  of  thumb  of  "It  sent  me  to  sleep," 
or  "  It  kept  me  awake."  And  I  think  that  what 
I  have  already  remarked  about  the  subconscious 
element  in  literature  should  have  answered 
that  question  about  "  books  with  a  purpose." 
As  a  matter  of  fact  I  believe  that  they  are  mostly 
trash,  but  it  is  not  a  case  for  a  -priori  reasoning  ; 
you  must  test  each  book  by  itself.  Stevenson 
was,  I  believe,  an  artist  at  heart,  but  we  have 
seen  how  the  artificer  overcame  the  artist  in 
Jekyll  and  Hyde,  and  in  like  manner  there  have 
been  cases  of  people  who  were  artificers,  and 
even  preachers,  at  heart,  who  were  forced  to 
succumb  to  the  concealed,  subconscious  artist, 
when  pen  touched  paper.  For  example  ;  first 
logically  analyse  Lycidas  ;  you  will  be  disgusted 
just  as  Dr.  Johnson,  who  had  no  analysis  but  the 
logical,  was  disgusted.  Forget  your  logic,  your 
common  sense,  and  read  it  again  as  poetry  ; 
you  will  acknowledge  the  presence  of  an  amazing 
masterpiece.  An  unimportant  lament  over  an 
unimportant  personage,  constructed  on  an 
affected  pseudo-pastoral  plan,  full  of  acrid, 
Puritanical  declamation  and  abuse,  wantonly 
absurd  with  its  mixture  of  nymphs  and  St. 
Peter ;  it  is  not  only  wretched  in  plan  but 
clumsy  in  construction,  the  artifice  is  atrocious. 
And  it  is  also  perfect  beauty  !  It  is  the  very 
soul   set   to   music  ;    its   austere   and  exquisite 


I04  Hieroglyphics 

rapture  thrills  one  so  that  I  could  almost 
say :  He  who  understands  the  mystery  and 
the  beauty  of  Lycidas  understands  also  the 
final  and  eternal  secret  of  art  and  life  and 
man. 


IV 

Do  you  know  that  when  we  last  talked 
belles  lettres  the  whole  evening  went  by 
(or  at  least  I  think  so)  without  my  saying 
anything  about  Pickwick  P  I  hope  you  noted 
the  omission  in  your  diary,  if  you  keep  one, 
because  I  find  it  difficult  to  talk  much  about 
literature,  without  drawing  some  illustration 
from  that  very  notable,  and  curious,  and  un- 
appreciated book.  Yes,  I  maintain  the  justice 
of  the  last  epithet  in  spite  of  circulation,  in 
spite  of  popularity,  and  in  spite  of  Pickwick 
"  literature."  You  may  like  a  book  very  much 
and  read  it  three  times  a  year  without  appreci- 
ating it,  and  if  a  great  book  is  really  popular  it 
is  sure  to  owe  its  popularity  to  entirely  wrong 
reasons.  There  are  people,  you  know,  who 
study  Homer  every  day,  because  he  throws  so 
much  light  on  the  manners  and  customs  of  the 
ancients,  and  if  a  book  of  our  own  time  is  both 
great  and  popular,  you  may  be  sure  that  it  is 
loved  for  its  most  peccant  parts,  just  as  nine 
people    out    of    ten    will    recall     The    Raven 

J  05 


I  o  6  Hieroglyphics 

and  The  Bells  if  the  poetry  of  Edgar  Allan 
Poe  is  mentioned, 

After  all,  I  needn't  have  excused  myself  for 
my  constant  references  to  Dickens's  masterpiece, 
since  I  have  already  informed  you  that,  like 
Coleridge,  I  love  a  "  cyclical "  mode  of  dis- 
coursing ;  and  I  honestly  think  that  if  you 
want  to  understand  something  about  the 
Mysteries  or  the  Fine  Arts  (which  are  the  expres- 
sion of  the  mysteries)  it  is  the  only  way.  A 
proposition  in  Euclid  is  demonstrated  and  done 
with,  since  nothing  can  be  added  to  a  mathe- 
matical proof ;  but  literature  is  different.  It 
is  many-sided  and  many-coloured,  and  variable 
always ;  you  can  consider  it  in  half  a  dozen 
ways,  from  half  a  dozen  standpoints,  and  from 
half  a  dozen  judgments,  each  of  which  will  be 
true  and  perfect  in  itself,  and  yet  each  will 
supplement  the  other.  Two  or  three  weeks  ago 
I  think  I  tried  to  show  you  what  a  complex 
organism  any  given  book  reveals,  if  one  examines 
it  with  a  little  attention,  and  if  one  specimen 
be  so  curiously  and  intricately  fashioned,  you 
may  imagine  the  complexity  of  the  whole 
subject. 

But  I  have  a  more  particular  reason  for  turning 
once  more  to  The  Posthumous  Papers.  We  have 
noted  that  that  which  at  first  sight  seems 
significant   may  turn   out    to    be    insignificant, 


Hieroglyphics  i  o  7 

and  I  think  that  in  passing  I  hinted  that  the 
reverse  was  sometimes  the  case.  Very  good  ; 
and  the  especial  instance  that  is  in  my  mind 
is  the  enormous  capacity  for  strong  drink 
exhibited  by  Mr.  Pickwick  and  all  his  friends 
and  associates.  Of  course  you've  noticed  it ; 
perhaps  you  have  thought  it  a  nuisance  and  a 
blemish  from  the  artistic  standpoint,  just  as 
many  "  good  people  "  have  found  it  a  nuisance 
and  a  blemish  from  the  temperance  or  teetotal 
standpoint.  You  may  have  felt  quite  certain 
that  a  set  of  men  who  were  always  drinking 
brandy  and  water,  and  strong  ale,  and  milk- 
punch,  and  madeira,  who  constantly  drank  a 
great  deal  too  much  of  each  and  all  of  these 
things,  would  be  extremely  unpleasant  com- 
panions in  private  life ;  I  dare  say  you  have  been 
thankful  that  you  never  knew  Mr.  Pickwick  or 
any  of  his  followers.  You  know,  I  expect,  by 
personal  experience,  that  a  man  whose  daily 
life  is  a  pilgrimage  from  one  whiskey  bar  to 
another  is,  in  most  cases,  an  extremely  tedious 
and  unprofitable  companion  ;  and  it  is  un- 
deniable that  the  Pickwickians  rather  made 
opportunities  for  brandy  and  water  than 
avoided  them.  And  in  an  indirect  manner,  you 
feel  that  all  this  makes  you  like  the  book  less. 

But  (I  can  no  more  miss  an  opportunity  of 
digression  than  Mr.  Pickwick  could  keep  on  the 


I  o  8  Hieroglyphics 

coach  if  there  were  a  chance  of  drinking  his 
favourite  beverage)  do  you  know  that  there  are 
really  people  who  make  their  liking  or  disliking 
of  the  characters  the  criterion  of  literature — of 
romances,  I  mean  ?  We  touched  on  this  some 
time  ago,  and  I  remember  saying  that  in  the 
case  of  such  secondary  books  as  Jane  Austen's 
and  Thackeray's,  it  was  permissible  enough 
to  go  where  one  was  best  amused,  that  one  had 
a  right  to  say,  "  Yes,  the  artifice  may  be  the 
better  here,  but  the  characters  are  much  more 
amusing  there,  and  I  had  rather  talk  to  the  cos- 
mopolitan whose  manners  are  now  and  then  a 
little  to  seek,  than  to  the  maiden  lady  in  the 
village,  whose  decorum  is  so  unexceptionable." 
But  I  confess  that  at  the  time  it  had  not  dawned 
upon  me  that  there  are  people  who  try  to  judge 
fine  art — the  true  literature — on  the  same 
grounds.  I  believe,  however,  that  such  is  the 
case ;  I  believe,  indeed,  that  the  egregious 
M.  Voltaire  was  dimly  moved  by  some  such 
feeling  when  he  wrote  his  famous  "  criticism  " 
of  the  prophet  Habakkuk.  What  (he  must  have 
said  to  himself)  would  they  think  in  the  salons 
of  a  man  who  talked  like  this  : — 

And  the  everlasting  mountains  were  scattered, 
The  perpetual  hills  did  bow  : 
His  ways  are  everlasting  ? 


Hieroglyphic  s  109 

Evidently  Habakkuk  could  never  hope  for  a 
second  invitation ;  and  therefore  he  wrote 
rubbish.  And  I  beheve,  as  I  said,  that  there  are 
many  people  who  more  or  less  unconsciously 
judge  hterature  by  this  measure,  by  asking, 
"  Would  these  people  be  pleasant  to  meet  ? 
would  one  like  to  hear  this  kind  o£  thing  in 
one's  drawing-room  ?  "  And  this  is  well  enough 
with  secondary  books,  since  they  contain  nothing 
but  "  characters,"  and  "  incidents,"  and 
"  scenes,"  and  "  facts  "  ;  but  it  is  by  no  means 
well  in  hterature,  in  which,  as  we  found  out, 
all  these  things  are  symbols,  words  of  a  language, 
used,  not  for  themselves,  but  because  they  are 
significant.  Remember  our  old  definition — 
ecstasy,  the  withdrawal,  the  standing  apart 
from  common  Hfe — and  you  will  see  that  we 
may  almost  reverse  this  popular  method  of 
judgment,  and  turn  it  into  another  test,  or 
rather  another  way  of  putting  the  test,  of  art. 
For,  if  literature  be  a  kind  of  withdrawal  from 
the  common  atmosphere  of  Ufe,  we  shall 
naturally  expect  to  find  its  utterance,  both  in 
matter  and  manner,  wholly  unsuitable  for  the 
drawing-room  or  the  street,  and  its  "  characters  " 
persons  whom  we  cannot  imagine  ourselves 
associating  with  on  pleasant  or  comfortable 
terms.  Neither  you  nor  I  would  be  very  happy 
on    Ulysses's    boat,    we    should    soon    become 


no 


Hieroglyphics 


irritated  with  Don  Quixote,  we  should  hardly 
feel  at  home  with  Sir  Galahad.  It  is  true  that 
all  the  good  there  is  in  men  is  this — that  at 
rare  intervals,  in  certain  lonely  moments  of 
exaltation  they  do  feel  for  the  time  a  faint 
stirring  of  the  beautiful  within  them,  and  then 
they  would  adventure  on  the  Quest  of  the 
Graal ;  but  as  you  know  few  of  us  are  saints, 
fewer,  perhaps,  are  men  of  genius ;  we  are  sunk 
for  the  most  part  of  our  days  in  the  common 
life,  and  our  care  is  for  the  body  and  for  the 
things  of  the  body,  for  the  street  and  the 
drawing-room,  and  not  for  the  perpetual, 
solitary  hills.  So  you  see  that  if  you  read  a  book 
and  can  say  of  the  characters  in  it,  "  I  wish 
I  knew  them,"  there  is  very  strong  reason  to 
suspect  that  the  book  in  question  is  not  litera- 
ture, though  it  may  well  be  a  pleasant  picture  of 
pleasant  people. 

Yes,  I  was  expecting  that  question.  I  should 
have  been  sorry  if  your  sense  of  humour  had 
not  prompted  you  to  ask  whether  the  drinking 
of  too  much  milk-punch  constituted  a  with- 
drawal from  the  common  life,  a  profound  and 
lonely  ecstasy.  But  don't  you  remember  that 
when  we  were  discussing  Pickwick  before,  and 
comparing  it  with  the  Odyssey,  I  suddenly  de- 
serted Homer,  and  brought  in  Sophocles  ? 
I  think  I  contrasted,  very  briefly,  the  education 


Hieroglyphics  1 1 1 

of  the  dramatist  with  the  education  o£  the 
romance  writer,  the  London  of  the  'twenties 
and  'thirties  with  the  city  of  the  Violet  Crown, 
the  fate  of  him 

a€t  Sia  XajXTrpoTaTOv 
/?aivovTOs  afSpws  aWepo'S 

with  that  of  the  other  who  tried  to  find  the  way 
through  the  evil  and  hideous  London  fog. 

Well,  you  might  have  been  inclined  to  ask, 
why  Sophocles  ?  But  do  you  remember  for 
whose  festivals,  in  whose  honour  the  Greek 
wrote  his  dramas  and  his  choral  songs  ?  It 
was  the  god  of  wine  who  was  worshipped  and 
invoked  at  the  Dionysiaca,  in  the  praise  of 
Dionysus  the  chorus  sang  and  danced  about  the 
altar,  and  all  the  drama  arose  from  the  celebra- 
tion of  the  Bacchic  mysteries.  So  you  get,  I 
think,  a  pretty  fair  proportion  :  as  the  Athens 
of  Sophocles  is  to  the  Cockneydom  of  Dickens, 
so  is  the  cult  of  Dionysus  to  the  cult  of  cold 
punch  and  brandy  and  water.  The  interior 
meaning  is  in  each  case  the  same  ;  the  artistic 
expression  has  lamentably  deteriorated,  in  the 
degree  that  the  artistic  atmosphere  on  the 
banks  of  Fleet  Ditch,  the  "  mother  of  dead 
dogs,"  was  inferior  to  the  artistic  atmosphere 
on  the  banks  of  the  Ilissus. 

I  expect  you  have  gathered  from  all  this  talk 


1 1 2  Hieroglyphics 

the  point  I  want  to  make  :  that  the  brandy 
and  water  and  punch  business  in  Pickwick, 
which  at  first  sight  seems  trivial  and  insignificant 
and  even  disgusting,  is,  in  fact,  full  of  the 
highest  significance.  Don't  you  notice  the 
insistence  with  which  the  writer  dwells  on 
drinking,  the  unction  and  enthusiasm  with 
which  he  describes  it  ?  We  have  admitted  the 
poverty  of  the  "  materials  "  with  which  Dickens 
works,  and  of  course  it  would  be  as  idle  to 
expect  him  to  write  a  choral  song  in  honour  of 
Dionysus  as  it  would  be  to  expect  him  to  write 
in  Greek.  He  expressed  himself  as  best  he 
could,  in  the  "  language  "  (that  is  with  the  inci- 
dents and  in  the  atmosphere)  that  he  knew, 
but  there  can  be  no  possible  doubt  as  to  his 
meaning.  In  a  word,  I  absolutely  identify 
the  "  brandy  and  water  scenes "  with  the 
Bacchic  cultus  and  all  that  it  implies. 

This  is  "  a  little  too  much  for  you,"  is  it  ? 
Well,  let  us  take  another  well-known  book,  the 
Gargantua  and  Pantagruel.  You  know  it  well, 
and  I  have  only  to  remind  you  of  the  name  to 
remind  you  that  as  Pickwick  has  been  said  to 
"  reek  with  brandy  and  water,"  so  does  Rabelais 
assuredly  reek  of  wine.    The  history  begins  : 

"  Grandgousier  estoit  bon  raillard  en  son 
temps,  aimant  a  boire  net," 


Hieroglyphics  1 1 3 

it  ends  with  the  Oracle  of  the  Holy  Bottle, 
with  the  word 

"  Trinch  .  .  .  un  mot  panomphee,  celebre 
et  entendu  de  toutes  nations,  et  nous  signifie, 
beuvez.  ;  " 

and  I  refer  you  to  the  allocution  of  Bacbuc,  the 
priestess  of  the  Bottle,  at  large.  "  By  wine,"  she 
says,  "  is  man  made  divine,"  and  I  may  say  that  if 
you  have  not  got  the  key  to  these  Rabelaisian 
riddles  much  of  the  value — the  highest  value — 
of  the  book  is  lost  to  you.  You  know  how  they 
drink,  those  strange  figures,  the  giants  and  their 
followers,  you  know  the  aroma  of  the  vintage, 
the  odour  of  the  wine-vat  that  fills  all  those 
marvellous  and  enigmatic  pages,  and  I  tell  you 
that  here  again  I  recognise  the  same  signs  as  in 
Pickwick,  the  same  music  as  that  of  the  dithy- 
rambic  choruses  in  honour  of  Dionysus,  which 
were  eventually  amplified  into  that  magnificent 
literary  product,  the  Greek  drama.  And  if 
we  wish  to  penetrate  the  secret  we  must  not 
forget  the  Hebrew  psalmist,  with  his  calix 
mens  inebrians  quam  frceclarus  est.  And 
remember,  too,  if  you  feel  inclined  to  shudder 
at  the  milk-punch,  that  the  words  which  I  have 
just  quoted  might  be  rendered,  "  how  splendid 
is  this  cup  of  wine  that  makes  me  drunk  !  "  and 
we  may  say  that,   in  a  manner,   poor  Dickens 

H 


114  Hieroglyphics 

did  so  render  them,  since,  as  I  have  reminded 
you,  he  belonged,  after  the  flesh,  to  the  Camden 
Town  of  the  'twenties,  and  was  forced  to  use  its 
unbeautiful  dialect  because  he  knew  no  other. 

And  after  all,  then,  what  does  this  Bacchic 
cultus  mean  ?  We  have  seen  that  under  various 
disguises  the  one  spirit  appeared  in  Greece, 
in  the  France  of  the  Renaissance,  and  in  Vic- 
torian England,  and  that  in  each  instance  there 
is  an  apparent  glorification  of  drunkenness. 
The  Greeks,  indeed,  a  sober  people  by  necessity, 
as  all  Southerners  are,  impersonated  the  genius 
of  intoxication,  and  made  excessive  drinking, 
as  it  would  seem,  an  elaborate  religion,  with 
rites  and  festivals  and  mysteries.  The 
Tourainian,  whose  personal  habit  was  that 
not  of  a  drunkard  but  of  a  learned  physician 
and  restorer  of  ancient  letters,  who  probably 
drank  very  much  in  the  manner  of  the  good 
cure  I  once  knew  ("  My  God  !  "  he  said  to  me, 
after  the  third  small  glass  of  small  white  wine, 
"  'tis  a  veritable  debauch  !  "),  has,  on  the  face 
of  it,  dedicated  all  his  enormous  book  to  the 
same  cause,  so  that  to  read  Pantagruel  is  like 
walking  through  a  French  village  in  the  vintage 
season,  when  the  whole  world,  as  Zola  un- 
pleasantly and  nastily  expresses  it,  "  pue  le 
raisin."  Thirdly,  Dickens,  who  loved  to  talk  of 
concocting  gin-punch,  and  left  it,  when  con- 


Hieroglyphics  1 1 5 

cocted,  to  be  drunk  by  his  guests,  shows  us  Mr. 
Pickwick  "  dead  drunk  "  in  the  wheelbarrow. 
And,  for  a  final  touch  of  apparent  absurdity, 
you  remember  that  the  Dionysus  myth  repre- 
sents wine  as  a  civilising  influence  !  You  may 
well  think  of  the  public-house  at  the  corner,  and 
ask  yourself  how  strong  drink  can  contribute  to 
civilisation. 

Well,  that  is,  in  very  brief  outline,  the 
problem  and  the  puzzle  ;  and  I  may  say  at  once 
that  to  the  literalist,  the  rationalist,  the  materi- 
aUst  critic,  the  problem  is  quite  insoluble. 
But  to  you  and  me,  who  do  not  end  in  any  kind  of 
ist^  the  enigma  will  not  be  quite  so  hopeless. 
Let  us  get  back  to  our  maxim  that,  in  literature, 
facts  and  incidents  are  not  present  for  their  own 
sake  but  as  symbols,  as  words  of  the  language  of 
art ;  it  will  follow,  then,  that  the  incidents  of 
the  Dionysus  myth,  the  incidents  of  Pantagruel 
and  Pickwick  are  not  to  be  taken  literally,  but 
symbolically.  We  are  not  to  conclude  that  the 
Greeks  were  a  race  of  drunkards,  or  that  Rabelais 
and  Dickens  preached  habitual  excess  in  drink 
as  the  highest  virtue  ;  we  are  to  conclude 
that  both  the  ancient  people  and  the  modern 
writers  recognised  Ecstasy  as  the  supreme  gift 
and  state  of  man,  and  that  they  chose  the  Vine 
and  the  juice  of  the  Vine  as  the  most  beautiful 
and   significant   symbol   of   that   Power   which 


1 1 6  Hieroglyphics 

withdraws  a  man  from  the  common  Hfe  and 
the  common  consciousness,  and  taking  him  from 
the  dust  of  the  earth,  sets  him  in  high  places, 
in  the  eternal  world  of  ideas.  And,  after  all,  I 
cannot  do  better  than  quote  at  length  the  sermon 
of  Bacbuc,  priestess  of  the  Dive  Bouteille. 

"  Et  icy  maintenons  que  non  rire,  ains  boire, 
est  le  propre  de  I'homme  :  je  ne  dis  boire  simple- 
ment  et  absolument,  car  aussi  bien  boivent  les 
bestes  :  je  dis  boire  vin  bon  et  frais.  Notez, 
amis,  que  de  vin,  divin  on  devient  :  et  n'y  a 
argument  tant  seur,  ni  art  de  divination  moins 
fallace.  Vos  academiques  I'afferment,  rendans 
I'etymologie  de  vin  lequel  ils  disent  en  Grec 
0IN02,  estre  comme  vis,  force,  puissance. 
Car  pouvoir  il  a  d'emplir  I'ame  de  toute  verite, 
tout  savoir  et  philosophie.  Si  vous  avez  note  ce 
qui  est  en  lettres  loniques  escrit  dessus  la  porte 
du  temple,  vous  avez  peu  entendre  qu'en  vin  est 
verite  cachee." 

You  see  how  that  passage  lights  up  the  whole 
book,  and  you  see  what  Rabelais  meant  in  the 
Prologue  to  the  first  book  by  that  reference  to 
"  certain  little  boxes  such  as  we  see  nowadays  in 
apothecaries'  shops,  the  which  boxes  are  painted 
on  the  outside  with  joyous  and  fantastic  figures 
.  .  .  but  within  they  hold  rare  drugs,  as  balm, 
ambergris,  ammonium,  musk,  civet,  certain  stones 
of  high  virtue,  and  all  manner  of  precious  things." 


Hieroglyphics  1 1 7 

I  do  not  know  whether  you  have  read  any  of  our 
Enghsh  commentators  on  Rabelais,  if  not,  I 
would  not  advise  you  to  do  so,  unless  you  take 
pleasure  in  futility.  For  instance  they  take  the 
passage  from  the  prologue,  and  seeing  the  hint 
that  something  is  concealed,  try  by  some  com- 
plicated chain  of  argument  to  show  that 
Rabelais  veiled  his  attacks  on  the  Church 
under  a  mask  of  "  wild  buffoonery."  Of  course 
the  attacks  on  the  Church  (the  "  secondary  " 
and  comparatively  unimportant  element  in  the 
book,  fairly  answering  to  the  attacks  on  books 
of  chivalry  in  the  Don  Quixote)  are  as  open  as 
any  attack  can  well  be,  and  anyone  who  finds 
a  veil  drawn  between  Rabelais'  dislike  for  the 
clergy  and  his  expression  of  it  must  have  a  very 
singular  notion  of  what  constitutes  concealment, 
and  a  still  more  singular  misapprehension  of  the 
motive-forces  which  make  and  shape  great 
books.  Art,  you  may  feel  quite  assured,  pro- 
ceeds always  from  love  and  rapture,  never  from 
hatred  and  disdain,  and  satire  of  every  kind  qua 
satire  is  eternally  condemned  to  that  Gehenna 
where  the  pamphlets,  the  "  literature  of  the 
subject,"  and  the  "  life-like  "  books  lie  all 
together.  In  Don  Quixote  one  perceives  that 
Cervantes  loved  the  romances  he  condemns, 
and  the  satire  is  therefore  good-humoured, 
and,  one  may  say,  does  his  book  little  harm  or 


1 1 8  Hieroglyphics 

none  at  all ;  but  Rabelais  had  been  harshly- 
treated  by  the  friars,  and  his  consequent  ill- 
humour,  his  very  violent  abuse  are  in  disaccord 
v^^ith  the  eternal  melodies  which  may  be  dis- 
cerned in  Pantagruel,  noted  there  under  strange 
symbols.  Yes,  the  satire  in  Rabelais  is  an 
"  accident,"  which  one  has  to  accept  and  to 
make  the  best  of  ;  some  of  it  is  amusing  enough, 
"  joyous  and  fantastic,"  like  the  "  apes  and  owls 
and  antiques  "  that  adorn  the  little  boxes  of 
the  apothecaries ;  some  of  it  is  a  little  acrid, 
as  I  said  ;  but  let  us  never  forget  that  the 
essence  of  the  book  is  its  splendid  celebration  of 
ecstasy,  under  the  figure  of  the  vine. 

You  "know  I  have  not  opened  the  door  ;  I  have 
only  put  the  key  into  your  hands,  in  this  as 
in  other  instances.  There  are  things  which, 
strange  to  say,  are  better  left  unsaid,  and  this,  no 
doubt,  Rabelais  perceived  when  he  devised  his 
symbolism  and  set  many  traps  in  the  paths  of 
the  shallow  commentator.  It  was  not  from 
dread  of  the  consequences  of  attacking  the  clergy 
that  he  devised  curious  veils  and  concealments, 
since,  as  I  have  noted,  his  hatred  of  the  Church 
is  quite  open  and  unconcealed.  He  chose  the 
method  of  symbolism,  firstly  because  he  was  an 
artist,  and  symbolism  is  the  speech  of  art ;  and 
secondly  because  the  high  truth  that  he  pro- 
phesied was  not,  and  is  not,  fit  for  vulgar  ears. 


Hieroglyphics  1 1 9 

The  secret  places  of  the  human  nature  are  not 
heedlessly  to  be  exposed  to  the  uninitiated,  who 
would  merely  profane  this  occult  knowledge  if 
they  had  it.  By  consequence  The  Complete 
Works  of  Rabelais  are  obtainable  in  Holywell 
Street,  and  many,  seeking  the  hbidinous,  have 
found  merely  the  tiresome,  and  have  cursed 
their  bargain. 

No,  I  will  positively  say  no  more.  The  key  is 
in  your  hands,  and  with  it  you  may  open  what 
chambers  you  can.  There  is  only  this  to  be 
mentioned  :  that,  if  I  were  you,  I  would  not 
be  "  afraid  with  any  amazement  "  should  Mr. 
Pickwick's  overdose  of  milk  -  punch  prove, 
ultimately,  a  clue  to  the  labyrinth  of  mystic 
theology. 

There  are,  however,  one  or  two  minor  points 
in  Rabelais  that  may  be  worth  notice.  I  might, 
you  know,  analyse  it  as  I  attempted  to  analyse 
Don  Quixote.  There  is  in  Gargantua  and 
Pantagruel  that  same  complexity  of  thought  and 
construction  :  you  may  note,  first  of  all,  the 
great  essence  which  is  common  to  these  master- 
pieces as  to  all  literature — ecstasy,  expressed  in 
the  one  case  under  the  similitude  of  knight- 
errantry,  in  the  other  by  the  symbol  of  the  vine. 
Then,  in  Rabelais  you  have  another  symbolism 
of  ecstasy — the  shape  of  gauloiserie,  of  gross, 
exuberant    gaiety,    expressing    itself    by    out- 


1 20  Hieroglyphics 

rageous  tales,  outrageous  words,  by  a  very 
cataract  of  obscenity,  if  you  please,  if  only 
you  will  notice  how  the  obscenity  of  Rabelais 
transcends  the  obscenity  of  common  life  ;  how 
grossness  is  poured  out  in  a  sort  of  mad  torrent, 
in  a  frenzy,  a  very  passion  of  the  unspeakable. 
Then,  thirdly,  there  is  the  impression  one 
collects  from  the  book  :  a  transfigured  picture 
of  that  wonderful  age  :  there  is  the  note  of  the 
vast,  interminable  argument  of  the  schools,  and 
for  a  respond,  the  clear,  enchanted  voice  of 
Plato  ;  there  is  the  vision,  there  is  the  mystery 
of  the  vast,  far-lifted  Gothic  quire  ;  and  those 
fair,  ornate,  and  smiling  chateaux  rise  smiling 
from  the  rich  banks  of  the  Loire  and  the  Vienne. 
The  old  tales  told  in  farmhouse  kitchens  in  the 
Chinonnais,  the  exultation  of  the  new  learning, 
of  lost  beauty  recovered,  the  joy  of  the  vintage, 
the  old  legends,  the  ancient  turns  of  speech,  the 
new  style  and  manner  of  speaking  :  so  to  the 
old  world  answers  the  new.  Then  one  has  the 
satire  of  clergy  and  lawyers — the  criticism  of 
life — analogous,  as  I  said,  with  much  that  is  in 
Cervantes,  and  so  from  divers  elements  you  see 
how  a  literary  masterpiece  is  made  into  a  whole. 
But  now,  do  you  know,  I  am  going  to  make  a 
confession.  You  have  heard  me  say  more  than 
once  that  in  art,  in  literature  properly  so  called, 
liking  and  disliking  count  for  nothing.    We  have 


Hieroglyphics 


121 


understood,  I  think,  that  when  once  amusing 
reading-matter  has  been  put  out  of  court,  the 
question  of  how  often,  with  what  absorption 
one  reads  a  work  of  art,  matters  nothing.  Well, 
I  want  to  contradict,  or  rather  to  modify  that 
axiom  ;  we  have  been  speaking  of  three  great 
books,  each  of  which  I  believe  firmly  to  be  true 
literature — Pickwick,  Don  Quixote,  and  Panta- 
gruel.  Here  is  my  confession.  I  read  Pickwick, 
say,  once  a  year,  Don  Quixote,  once  every  three 
years,  while  I  read  Rabelais  in  fragments  perhaps 
once  in  six  years.  You  might  suppose  that  I 
have  indicated  the  order  of  merit  ?  Well,  I  have, 
but  you  must  reverse  the  order,  since  I  firmly 
believe  that  Pantagruel  is  the  finest  of  the  three. 
We  will  leave  Dickens  out  of  account,  since  we 
are  agreed  that  though  the  message  was  that  of 
angels,  the  accent  and  the  speech  were  of 
Camden  Town  ;  he,  that  is  to  say,  approaches 
most  nearly  to  the  common  life,  to  the  common 
passages  in  which  we  live,  and  hence  he,  naturally, 
pleases  us  the  most  in  our  ordinary  and  common 
humours.  But,  of  the  other  two,  I  confess  that 
Cervantes  pleases  me  much  the  more  ;  the  vul- 
garity of  Dickens  is  absent,  or  rather  it  is  concen- 
trated in  Sancho  in  a  much  milder  form  than  that 
of  Pickwick,  for  a  Spanish  peasant  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  with  all  his  "  common  sense," 
and  practical  reason,  is  less  remote  from  beauty 


122 


Hieroglyphics 


than  the  retired  "  business  man  "  of  the  early 
nineteenth  century  ;  just  as  poor  Mr.  Pickwick, 
an  honest,  kindly  creature,  is  vastly  superior 
to  the  blatant,  pretentious,  diamond-bedecked 
swindlers  who  represent  the  City  in  our  day. 
But  Cervantes,  who  lacks,  as  I  say,  the  "  com- 
monness "  of  Dickens,  has  something  of  the 
urbanity,  the  cosmopolitanism  of  Thackeray,  he 
is,  to  a  certain  degree,  a  Colonel  Newcome  of  his 
time,  but  he  has  seen  the  world  more  sagaciously 
than  Colonel  Newcome  ever  could.  So  while 
Rabelais  appals  me  with  his  extravagance,  his 
torrents  of  obscene  words,  I  am  charmed  with 
the  good-humoured  and  observant  companion- 
ship of  Cervantes. 

And  hence  I  conclude  that  Pantagruel  is  the 
finer  book.  It  may  sound  paradoxical  to  say  so, 
but  don't  you  see  that  the  very  grotesquerie  of 
Rabelais  shows  a  further  remove  from  the  daily 
round,  a  purer  metal,  less  tinged  with  the 
personal,  material  interest  than  Don  Quixote. 
Mind  you,  I  find  greater  deftness,  a  finer  artifice 
in  Cervantes,  who  I  think  expressed  his  conception 
the  more  perfectly,  but  I  think  that  the  concep- 
tion of  Rabelais  is  the  higher,  precisely  because 
it  is  the  more  remote.  Look  at  the  Pantagruel ; 
consider  those  "  lists,"  that  more  than  frankness, 
that  ebullition  of  grossness,  plainly  intentional, 
designed  :    it  is  either  the   merest   lunacy,  or 


Hieroglyphics  123 

else  it  is  sublime.  Don't  you  remember  the 
trite  saying,  "  Extremes  meet "  ?  don't  you 
perceive  that  when  a  certain  depth  has  been 
passed  you  begin  to  ascend  into  the  heights  ? 
The  Persian  poet  expresses  the  most  transcen- 
dental secrets  of  the  Divine  Love  by  the  grossest 
phrases  of  the  carnal  love  ;  so  Rabelais  soars 
above  the  common  Hfe,  above  the  streets  and 
the  gutter,  by  going  far  lower  than  the  streets 
and  the  gutter  :  he  brings  before  you  the  highest 
by  positing  that  which  is  lower  than  the  lowest, 
and  if  you  have  the  prepared,  initiated  mind,  a 
Rabelaisian  "  list  "  is  the  best  preface  to  the 
angelic  song.  All  this  may  strike  you  as  extreme 
paradox,  but  it  has  the  disadvantage  of  being 
true,  and  perhaps  you  may  assure  yourself  of  its 
truth  by  recollecting  the  converse  proposition — 
that  it  is  when  one  is  absorbed  in  the  highest 
emotions  that  the  most  degrading  images  will 
intrude  themselves.  No  ;  you  are  right  :  this 
is  not  the  psychology  of  the  "  scientific  "  persons 
who  write  hand-books  on  the  subject,  it  is  not 
the  psychology  of  the  "  serious  "  novelists,  of 
those  who  write  the  annals  of  the  "  engaged  "  ; 
but  it  happens  to  be  the  psychology  of  man. 

I  don't  know  that  very  much  can  be  made  of 
the  signification  of  the  characters  in  Pantagruel, 
as  I  hardly  think  that  Rabelais  was  anxious  to 
be  systematic  or  consistent  in  delineating  them. 


124  Hieroglyphics 

I  believe  that  there  are  two  reasons  for  the 
gigantic  stature  o£  Pantagruel,  or  perhaps  three. 
The  form  of  the  whole  story  came  from  popular 
legends  about  a  giant  named  Gargantua,  and 
that  is  the  first  and  least  important  reason. 
Secondly  the  "  giant  "  conception  does  some- 
thing to  remove  the  book  from  common  ex- 
perience ;  it  is  a  sign-post,  warning  you  not  to 
expect  a  faithful  picture  of  life,  but  rather  a 
withdrawal  from  life  and  from  common  ex- 
perience, and  you  are  in  a  position  to  appreciate 
the  value  of  that  motive,  since  I  have  never  ceased 
from  telling  you  that  it  is  the  principal  motive 
of  all  literature.  And,  thirdly,  I  hesitate  and 
doubt,  but  nothing  more,  whether  the  giant 
Pantagruel,  he  who  is  "  all  thirst  "  and  ever 
athirst,  may  not  be  a  hint  of  the  stature  of  the 
perfect  man,  of  the  ideal  man,  freed  from  the 
bonds  of  the  common  life,  and  common  appetites, 
having  only  the  eternal  thirst  for  the  eternal  vine. 
Candidly,  I  am  inclined  to  favour  this  view,  but 
only  as  a  private  interpretation  ;  it  may  be  all 
nonsense,  and  I  shall  not  be  offended  or  surprised 
if  you  can  prove  to  me  that  it  is  nonsense.  But 
have  you  noticed  how  Pantagruel  is  at  once  the 
most  important  and  the  least  important  figure 
in  the  book  ?  He  is  the  most  important  person- 
age ;  he  is  the  hero,  the  leader,  the  son  of  the 
king,  the  giant,  wiser  than  any  or  all  of  his 


Hieroglyphics  125 

followers  :  formally,  he  is  to  Rabelais  that  which 
Don  Quixote  is  to  Cervantes.  And  yet,  actually, 
he  is  little  more  than  a  vague,  tremendous 
shadow  ;  the  Hving,  speaking,  impressive  person- 
ages are  Frere  Jean  and  Panurge,  who  occupy 
the  stage  and  capture  our  attention.  Doesn't 
this  rather  suggest  to  you  the  part  played  by  the 
"  real "  man  in  life  itself  ?  a  subordinate, 
unobtrusive  part  usually,  hidden  very  often  by 
an  exterior  which  bears  little  resemblance  to  the 
true  man  within.  You  know  Coleridge  says 
that  : 

"  Pantagruel  is  the  Reason  ;  Panurge  the 
Understanding — the  pollarded  man,  the  man 
with  every  faculty  except  the  reason.  I  scarcely 
know  an  example  more  illustrative  of  the 
distinction  between  the  two.  Rabelais  had  no 
mode  of  speaking  the  truth  in  those  days  but  in 
such  form  as  this ;  as  it  was,  he  was  indebted  to 
the  king's  protection  for  his  life." 

I  must  cavil  at  the  last  sentence,  in  which 
Coleridge  seems  to  hint  that  Rabelais  was  in 
danger  because  he  had  hinted  the  distinction 
between  the  Reason  and  the  Understanding. 
With  all  respect  to  Coleridge,  Rabelais  might 
have  gone  to  the  limits  of  psychology  and 
metaphysics  without  incurring  any  danger  ;  he 
was  threatened  on  account  of  his  very  open  satire 
of  the  Church  and  the  clergy,  which,  as  I  have 


126  Hieroglyphics 

pointed  out,  is  as  plain  spoken  as  satire  well  can 
be.  Still,  I  think  that  Coleridge,  using  the 
technical  language  of  German  philosophy,  had  a 
glimpse  of  the  truth,  and  Mr.  Besant's  remark 
that  Panurge  is  a  careful  portrait  of  a  man 
without  a  soul  is  virtually  the  same  definition  in 
another  terminology.  As  I  have  already  said,  I 
don't  think  that  Rabelais  kept  his  characters 
within  the  strict  limits  of  consistence — they  are 
only  significant,  perhaps,  now  and  then — and  I 
want  to  say,  again,  that  I  speak  under  correction 
in  this  matter,  not  feeling  at  all  sure  of  my 
ground.  But  I  am  incHned  to  think  that 
Pantagruel,  Panurge,  and  the  Monk  are  not  so 
much  three  different  characters  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  man  in  his  three  persons.  Frere  Jean 
is,  perhaps,  the  natural  man,  the  "  healthy 
animal,"  Panurge  is  the  rational  man,  and 
Pantagruel,  as  I  said,  is  the  spiritual,  or  perfect 
man,  who  looms,  gigantic,  in  the  background, 
almost  invisible,  and  yet  all-important,  and  the 
three  are,  in  reality.  One.  If  I  may  apply  the  case 
to  our  own  subject,  I  may  say  that  while  Panta- 
gruel conceives  the  idea,  Panurge  writes  the 
book,  and  Brother  John  has  the  courage  to  take 
it  to  the  publishers.  The  first  is  the  artist,  the 
second  the  artificer,  and  the  third  the  social 
being,  ready  to  battle  for  his  place  in  the 
material  world.    The  giant  is  always  calm,  since 


Hieroglyphics  1 2  7 

his  head  is  high  above  earth — vidit  nubes  et 
sidera — but  the  other  two  have  to  face  the  com- 
promises of  hfe,  and  suffer  its  defeats.  All  this 
may  be  purely  fantastical ;  and  at  any  rate  I  am 
sure  that  anyone  who  knows  his  Rabelais  could 
pick  many  holes  in  my  interpretation.  For 
example,  I  said  that  the  monk  was  the  "  healthy 
animal,"  and  Panurge  the  rational  man  ;  but 
there  are  occasions  when  Panurge  assumes  the 
character  of  the  unhealthy  beast,  the  hairy- 
legged,  hybrid  creature  of  the  Greek  myth, 
who  uses  the  superior  human  artifice  for  ends  that 
are  wholly  bestial  or  worse  than  bestial.  Still,  is 
this  a  valid  objection  ?  Are  there  not  such  men 
in  Hfe  itself  ?  Is  it  not,  perhaps,  the  peculiar  and 
terrible  privilege  of  humanity  that  it  may,  if  it 
pleases,  prostitute  its  most  holy  and  most  blessed 
gifts  to  the  worst  and  most  horrible  uses  ?  And 
does  not  each  one  of  us  feel  that,  potentially,  at 
all  events,  there  is  such  a  being  within  him,  not 
yielded  to,  perhaps,  for  a  moment,  yet  always 
present,  always  ready  to  assume  the  command  ? 
The  greatest  saints,  we  are  told,  have  suffered 
the  most  fiery  temptations ;  in  other  words — 
Pantagruel  is  always  attended  by  Panurge 
diabolicus.  I  have  talked  once  or  twice  of  the 
Shadowy  Companion,  but  one  must  not  forget 
that  there  is  the  Muddy  Companion  also  ;  a 
being  often  of  exquisite  wit  and  deep  understand- 


1 2  8  Hieroglyphics 

ing,  but  given  to  evil  ways  if  one  do  not  hold  him 
in  check. 

But,  in  any  case,  I  think  I  have  shown  that  the 
Pantagruel  is  one  of  the  most  extraordinary 
efforts  of  the  human  mind,  full  of  "  Pantagruel- 
ism  "  ;  and  that  word  stands  for  many  con- 
cealed and  wonderful  mysteries. 

It  is  not  in  the  least  a  "  pleasant,"  or  a  "  life- 
like," or  even  an  "  interesting  "  book  ;  I  think 
that  when  one  knows  of  the  key — or  rather  of 
the  keys — one  opens  the  pages  almost  with  a 
sensation  of  dread.  So  it  is  a  book  that  one 
consults  at  long  intervals,  because  it  is  only  at  rare 
moments  that  a  man  can  bear  the  spectacle  of 
his  own  naked  soul,  and  a  vision  that  is  splendid, 
certainly,  but  awful  also,  in  its  constant  appo- 
sition of  the  eternal  heights  and  the  eternal 
depths. 


I  HAVE  been  waiting  for  that  question  for 
a  very  long  time,  and  I  only  wonder  that 
you  have  been  able  to  restrain  yourself  so 
well — through  such  a  series  of  what  I  know  you 
beheve  to  be  paradoxes,  though  I  have  assured 
you  that  I  deal  merely  in  the  plainest  truth. 
But,  after  all,  your  question  is  quite  a  legitimate 
one,  and  I  remember  when  I  first  began  to  think 
of  these  things  I  went  astray — simply  because  I 
did  not  recognise  the  existence  of  the  difficulty 
that  has  been  bothering  you,  ever  since  that  talk 
of  ours  about  the  haulte  sagesse  Pantagrueline — 
et  Pickwickienne,  and  perhaps  before  it. 

Yes,  I  will  put  the  question  in  its  plainest, 
crudest  form,  and  I  will  make  you  ask,  if  you 
please,  whether  Charles  Dickens  had  any  con- 
sciousness of  the  interior  significance  of  the  milk- 
punch,  strong  ale,  and  brandy  and  water  which 
he  caused  Mr.  Pickwick  and  his  friends  to 
consume  in  such  outrageous  quantities.  It 
sounds  plain  enough  and  simple  enough,  doesn't 
it  ?  and  yet  I  must  tell  you  that  to  answer  that 
I  129 


130  Hieroglyphics 

question  fairly  you  must  first  analyse   human 

nature,  and  I  needn't  remind  you  that  that  is  a 

task  very  far  from  simple.     "  Man  "  sounds  a 

very  simple   predicate,   as  you  utter  it ;    you 

imagine   that    you   understand   its    significance 

perfectly  well,  but  when  you  begin  to  refine  a 

little,  and  to  bring  in  distinctions,  and  to  carry 

propositions  to  their  legitimate  bounds,  you  find 

that  you  have  undertaken  the  definition  of  that 

which    is    essentially    indefinite    and    probably 

indefinable.    And,  after  all,  we  need  not  pitch 

on  this  term  or  on  that,  there  is  no  need  to  select 

"  man  "  as  offering  any  especial   difficulty,  for 

I   take   it   that   the    truth    is   that   all   human 

knowledge  is  subject  to  the  same  disadvantage, 

the  same  doubts  and  reservations.    Omnia  exeunt 

in  mysterium  was  an  old  scholastic  maxim  ;   and 

the  only  people  who  have  always  a  plain  answer 

for  a  plain  question  are  the  pseudo-scientists, 

the  people  who  think  that  one  can  solve  the 

enigma  of  the  universe  with  a  box  of  chemicals. 

But  all  this  is  a  caution — necessary  I  suppose — 

that  you  need  not  expect  me  to  give  you  a  plain, 

cut  and  dried  answer  to  your  question  whether 

literature  is  a  conscious  production — or,  in  more 

particular   form — was   Dickens   aware   that   by 

milk-punch  he  meant  ecstasy  ?    I  shall  "  ask  you 

another  "  in  the  approved  Scotch  manner.    You 

were  telling  me  that  as  you  came  along  this 


Hieroglyphics  1 3 1 

evening  you  had  to  stop  for  five  minutes  at  the 
corner  of  the  Caledonian  Road  to  watch  the 
exquisite  grace  of  two  slum-girls  of  fourteen  or 
fifteen,  dancing  to  the  rattling  tune  of  a  piano- 
organ.  You  spoke  of  the  charm  of  their  move- 
ments— motus  lonici,  some  of  them,  I  fear — of 
the  purely  aesthetic  delight  there  was  in  the  sight 
of  young  girls,  disguised  as  horrible  little 
slatterns,  leaping  and  dancing  as  young  girls 
have  always  leapt  and  danced,  I  suppose,  from 
the  time  of  the  cave-dwellers  onwards.  Well, 
but  do  you  suppose  that  this  charm  you  have 
remarked  was  conscious  ?  Do  you  think  that 
Harriet  and  Emily  realised  that  they  were  of  the 
kin  of  the  ecstatic  dancers  of  all  time,  that  they 
were  beautiful  because  they  were  naturally 
expressing  by  a  symbol  that  is  universal,  the 
universal  and  eternal  ecstasy  of  life  ?  Look  back 
in  your  memory  for  illustrations  ;  I,  as  you 
know,  am  rather  the  enemy  of  facts,  and  it  is 
rarely  that  I  am  able  to  support  a  theory  by  a 
systematic  catena  of  instances  and  authorities. 
But,  if  one  had  the  industry  and  energy,  one 
might  make  a  most  curious  history  of  the  dance. 
Remember  the  Hebrew  dances  of  religious  joy,  of 
ecstasy  in  its  highest  form,  remember  that 
strange  survival  of  the  choristers  '  dance  before 
the  high  altar  in  Spain  on  certain  solemn  feasts,  a 
survival  which  has  persisted  in  spite  of  the  strong 


132  Hieroglyphics 

Roman  influences  which  make  for  rigid  uni- 
formity. Think  of  the  Greek  Maenads  and 
Bacchantes,  of  the  Dionysiac  chorus  in  the 
theatre,  of  our  old  EngHsh  peasants  "  treading 
the  mazes,"  and  dancing  round  the  maypole,  of 
dances  at  Breton  Pardons,  of  the  fairies,  sup- 
posed to  dance  in  the  forest  glade  beneath  the 
moon.  Why,  dancing  is  as  much  an  expression 
of  the  human  secret  as  literature  itself,  and  I 
expect  it  is  even  more  ancient ;  and  Harriet  and 
Emily,  leaping  on  the  pavement,  to  that  jingling, 
clattering  tune,  were  merely  showing  that 
though  they  were  the  children  of  the  slum,  and 
the  step-children  of  the  School  Board,  they 
were  yet  human,  and  partakers  of  the  universal 
sacrament. 

But  if  you  ask,  were  they  conscious  of  all  this, 
it  will  be  very  difficult  to  give  a  direct  answer. 
I  need  hardly  say  that  they  could  not  have  put 
their  very  real  emotion  into  the  terms  I  have 
used — nor  perhaps  into  any  terms  at  all — and  yet 
they  know  the  delight  of  what  they  do,  as  much 
as  if  they  had  been  initiated  in  all  the  mysteries. 
If  someone  with  the  genius  of  Socrates  for 
propounding  searching  questions  could  "  corner" 
Harriet  and  Emily,  and  face  and  overcome  that 
preliminary,  inevitable  "  Garn,"  it  is  possible  that 
he  might  find  that  they  were  fully  conscious  of 
the  reasons  why  they  danced  and  delighted  in 


Hieroglyphics  1 3  3 

dancing,  just  as  Socrates  demonstrated  to  the 
slave  that  he  was  perfectly  acquainted  with 
geometry  ;  but  failing  a  Socrates,  and  using 
words  in  their  usual  senses,  I  suppose  we  must 
say  that  they  are  not  conscious.  They  dance 
and  leap  without  calculation,  as  they  eat  and 
drink,  and  as  birds  sing  in  springtime  ;  and  very 
much  the  same  answer  must  be  given  to  the 
similar  question  as  to  literature. 

I  said  that  to  answer  the  riddle  fully  and 
completely  one  would  have  to  make  an  analysis 
of  human  nature  ;  and,  in  truth,  the  problem 
is  simply  a  problem  of  the  consciousness  and 
subconsciousness,  and  of  the  action  and  inter- 
action between  the  two.  I  will  not  be  too 
dogmatic.  We  are  in  misty,  uncertain  and 
unexplored  regions,  and  it  is  impossible  to  chart 
all  the  cities  and  mountains  and  streams,  and  fix 
with  the  nicety  of  the  ordnance  survey  their 
several  places  on  the  map — but  I  am  strangely 
inclined  to  think  that  all  the  quintessence  of  art 
is  distilled  from  the  subconscious  and  not  from 
the  conscious  self  ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  the 
artificer  seldom  or  never  understands  the  ends 
and  designs  and  spirit  of  the  artist.  Our  literary 
architects  have  all,  I  think,  builded  better  than 
they  knew,  and  very  often,  I  expect  the 
draughtsman  who  sees  the  triumph,  and  enjoys 
it  in  his  manner,  takes  all  the  credit  to  himself, 


1 3  4  Hieroglyphics 

and  ludicrously  imagines  that  it  is  his  careful 
drawing  and  amplification  of  the  sketch  and 
following  the  scale  that  have  created  the  high 
and  holy  house  of  God.  There  is  a  queer 
instance  of  what  I  mean  in  Dickens's  preface  to 
the  later  editions  of  Pickwick — I  put  the  book 
up  on  a  high  shelf  the  other  day,  and  I  can't  be 
bothered  getting  it  down  and  verifying  the 
quotation — but  I  believe  the  author,  after  telling 
us  that  the  original  design  was  to  give  oppor- 
tunities to  the  etcher  Seymour,  goes  on  to 
recapitulate,  as  it  were,  the  achievements  of  the 
book,  and  his  list  of  triumphs  is  much  more 
amusing  than  any  list  in  Rabelais.  The  law 
of  imprisonment  for  debt  has  been  altered  ! 
Fleet  Prison  has  been  pulled  down !  The 
School  Board  is  coming  !  Lawyers'  clerks  have 
nicer  manners  !  Parliamentary  elections  are  a 
little  better,  but  they  might  be  better  still ! 
and  one  wonders  that  he  does  not  announce 
that,  in  consequence  of  the  publication  of 
Pickwick,  medical  students  have  given  up 
brandy  for  barley-water.  It  is  evident,  you  see, 
that  Dickens  thought  (or  thought  that  he 
thought,  for  it  is  very  difficult  to  be  exact)  that 
his  masterpiece  of  the  picaresque,  his  epitome  of 
Pantagruelism,  was  written  to  correct  abuses,  and 
looking  back,  many  years  after  its  publication,  he 
congratulates  himself  that  most  of  these  abuses 


J 


Hieroglyphics  135 

have  been  corrected,  and  (one  can  almost  hear 
him  say)  ergo,  it  is  a  very  fine  book.     He  was 
impelled  to  write  this  nonsense  of  the  preface 
because  he  was,  by  comparison,  "  educated  "  ; 
Harriet,  the  dancer,  would  probably  tell  you, 
if  you  succeeded  in  penetrating  beyond  "  Gam," 
that    she    danced    because   she   liked   it  ;     but, 
granting  that  the  poisoning  process  had  been 
carried   out   more   successfully  in   the   case   of 
Emily,  she  might,  conceivably,  reply  that  she 
danced  "  becos  it's  'elthy,  and  Teacher  says  as  'ow 
it  cirkilates  the  blood."    Emily,  you  see,  obtained 
the  prize  for  Physiology,  as  well  as  for  French 
and  the  Piano-Forte  ;    she  is  thus  enabled  to 
give  "  reasons,"  and  they  are  quite  as  valuable 
as  the   "  reasons  "  of  Dickens,   explaining  the 
merits  of  Pickwick.     You  know  that  pompous 
old  fool  Forster,  who  took  in  Dickens  at  times, 
sniffed  a  little  at  Pickioick,  and  thought  the  later 
books,    with   their   ingenious   plots,  and  floods 
of  maudUn  tears,  and  portentous  "  character- 
drawing,"  immense  advances,  and  I  suppose  the 
master  felt  obliged  to  justify  himself  for  that 
first  enterprise — to  show  that  he  had  not  really 
been  inspired,  but  had  written  a  useful  tract ! 
You   remember   he   "  explains  "    Stiggins  ;    he 
warns  you  not  to  be  under  any  misconceptions, 
not  to  suppose  that  Stiggins  satirises  a,  b,  or  c, 
since  he  is  only  aimed  at  i,  y,  and  z.    Can  you 


136  Hieroglyphics 

conceive  that  a  mediaeval  artist  in  gurgoyles, 
having  perfected  for  our  eternal  joy  a  splendid 
grinning  creature,  lurking  on  the  parapet,  and 
having  endowed  him,  greatly  to  our  oblectation, 
with  the  tail  of  a  dragon,  the  body  of  a  dog,  the 
feet  of  an  eagle,  the  head  of  a  bull  in  hysterics, 
with  a  Franciscan  cowl,  by  way  of  finish,  should 
afterwards  explain  that  no  offence  was  intended 
to  Father  Ambrose,  the  prior  over  the  way  ? 

So  it  seems  fairly  plain,  doesn't  it  ?  that  in  the 
case  of  Dickens,  at  all  events,  there  was  no  very 
clear  consciousness  of  what  had  been  achieved, 
and  I  believe  that  you  would  find  the  rule  hold 
good  with  other  artists  in  a  greater  or  less  degree. 
With  Dickens  it  holds  in  a  very  high  degree,  just 
because  there  was  that  tremendous  gulf  I  have 
so  often  spoken  about  between  his  inward  and 
his  outward  self  ;  because,  with  the  soul  of  rare 
genius,  his  intelligence  lived  in  those  dreary, 
dusty  London  streets,  because  the  artificer,  even 
while  he  carried  out  the  artist's  commands, 
understood  very  little  what  he  was  doing.  But 
one  can  trace  the  same  working  in  other  cases. 
Take  the  case  of  Mr.  Hardy,  for  instance.  You 
remember  what  I  said  about  his  Two  on  a  Tower  ; 
I  praised  it  for  its  ecstatic  passion,  for  that 
revelation  of  a  great  rapture,  for  its  symbolism, 
showing  how  one  must  withdraw  from  the 
common  ways,  from  the  dusty  highroad  and  the 


Hieroglyphics  1 3  7 

swarming  street,  and  go  apart  into  high,  lonelj 
places,  if  one  would  perceive  the  high,  eternal 
mysteries.  I  did  not  say  so  in  so  many  words, 
but  you  no  doubt  saw  that  I  was  indicating  that 
which  is,  in  my  opinion,  valuable  in  Mr.  Hardy's 
work,  that  which  makes  his  books  literature. 
And  I  am  sure  he  would  most  decidedly  and 
entirely  disagree  with  me,  and  if  you  want  to 
know  why  I  am  sure,  I  refer  you  to  his  later 
books,  to  his  less  and  Jude.  You  know  how  the 
l^ess  was  talked  about,  how  it  remade  the  author 
from  the  commercial  standpoint,  simply  because 
it  contained,  with  many  beautiful  things,  many 
absurd  "  preachments,"  much  pseudo-philosophy 
of  a  kind  suited  to  the  intelligence  of  persons 
who  think  that  Robert  Elsmere  is  literature.  If 
Mr  Hardy  had  been  a  conscious  artist,  if  he  had 
understood,  I  mean,  what  makes  the  charm  and 
the  wonder  of  Two  on  a  Tower,  he  could  never 
have  adulterated  the  tale  of  less  with  a  free- 
thinking  tract,  he  would  never  have  turned 
'Jude  into  a  long  pamphlet  on  secondary  educa- 
tion for  farm  labourers,  with  agnostic  notes. 
It  is  pathetic  in  the  latter  book  amidst  much 
weary  and  futile  writing  to  come  across  a 
passage  here  and  there  that  shows  the  artist 
striving  for  utterance,  longing  to  sing  us  his 
incantations,  in  spite  of  the  preacher,  who  howls 
him   down.     Think   of   that   distant   vision   of 


1 3  8  Hieroglyphics 

Oxford  from  the  lonely  field,  of  all  those 
clustering  roofs  and  spires,  wet  with  rain, 
suddenly  kindling  into  glancing  and  scintillant 
fire  at  the  sunset ;  and  then  remember,  with 
what  sorrow,  that  this  is  but  an  oasis  in  a  barren 
land  of  blundering  argument.  It  is  almost  as 
if  literature  had  become  "  literature " — the 
"  literature  of  the  subject  " — and  one  must  only 
rejoice  that  the  artist  still  lives  even  if  the  enemy 
has  shut  him  up  in  prison.  You  can  trace  the 
struggle  all  through  the  book :  Sue  was  an 
artistic  conception,  a  very  curious  but  a  very 
beautiful  revelation  of  some  strange  elements 
in  the  nature  and  in  the  love  of  women  ;  but 
how  difficult  it  is  to  detect  this — the  real  Sue — 
underneath  the  surface,  which  makes  Sue  seem 
the  prophetess  of  the  "  Woman  Question,"  or 
whatever  the  contemporary  twaddle  on  the 
subject  was  called.  Conceive  the  Odyssey  so 
handled  that  it  seems  like  a  volume  in  a  "  tech- 
nical series  "  dealing  with  "  Seamanship  and 
Navigation,"  think  what  might  have  happened 
if  the  Rabelais  who  had  been  put  in  the  dark 
cell  of  Fontenay-le-Comte  had  completely 
gained  the  upper  hand,  and  had  silenced  that 
other  Rabelais — that  solitary  and  rapturous  soul 
who  had  seen  as  in  a  glass  the  marvellous  face  of 
man.  Well,  the  five  books  of  the  Pantagruel 
would  have  conveyed  to  us,  no  doubt  with  some 


Hieroglyphics  139 

eloquence  and  vigour,  the  highly  unimportant 
fact  that  Fran9ois  Rabelais,  runaway  Franciscan 
friar,  did  not  like  Franciscan  friars ;  and  now 
that  the  centuries  have  gone  by  we  see  how 
(comparatively)  worthless  such  a  book  as  that 
would  have  been.  Fortunately  Pantagruel  was 
too  strong  for  the  forces  of  Panurge  and  Frere 
Jean  combined,  and  so  they  have  been  able  to 
do  little  harm  to  the  book. 

And  how  one  wishes  that  it  might  be  so  vsdth 
Mr.  Hardy  !  It  is  not  as  if  he  had  no  "  body  " 
for  his  conceptions  ;  his  studies  of  peasant  folk 
do  very  well  as  backgrounds  for  his  dramas, 
though,  of  course,  his  work  in  this  way,  good  as 
it  is,  is  not  his  element  of  real  value.  But  it  is 
inoffensive  always,  sometimes  amusing,  and  it 
might  well  suffice  him  in  his  more  material 
moments,  when  he  feels  the  necessity  of  descend- 
ing from  the  solitary  heights  into  the  pleasant, 
populous  valleys  and  villages  of  common  life. 
But  his  true  work  is — as  it  is  the  work  of  all 
artists — the  shaping  for  us  of  ecstasy  by  means  of 
symbols  ;  and  for  him  the  symbol  which  he 
understands  is,  no  doubt,  the  passion  of  love, 
and  with  it  the  symbol  of  red,  lonely  plough- 
lands,  of  deep  overshadowed  lanes  that  climb  the 
hills  and  wander  into  lands  that  we  know  not, 
of  dark  woods  that  hide  a  secret,  of  strange, 
immemorial    barrows    where    one    may    have 


140  Hieroglyphics 

communion  with  the  souls  of  the  dead.  The 
passion  o£  love,  the  passion  of  the  hills — no  artist 
could  desire  more  exquisite  or  significant 
symbols  than  these,  nor  need  he  seek  for  more 
beautiful  forms  for  the  expression  of  the  perfect 
beauty.  And  Mr.  Hardy  has  chosen  to  be  a 
pamphleteer,  to  voice  for  us  our  poor,  ignorant 
contemporary  chatter  :  it  is  as  if  an  angel's  pen 
were  to  be  occupied  in  inditing  "  Society  Small 
Talk  !  " 

But  it  proves  the  unconsciousness  of  Mr. 
Hardy's  art ;  and  here,  by  the  way,  I  am  moved 
to  revert  to  the  case  of  Rabelais.  How  far,  you 
may  ask,  was  he  conscious  of  what  he  was  saying  ? 
and  I  see  you  remember  that  passage  I  quoted 
from  the  last  book — the  splendid  declaration 
of  the  Priestess  Bacbuc  that  "  by  wine  is  man 
made  divine."  That  passage,  and  indeed  many 
other  passages  in  the  final  chapters,  would  seem 
to  show  that  the  author  had  worked  consciously, 
and  I  certainly  think  the  point  worth  our 
consideration.  You  will  remember  that  I 
stated  my  rule  without  bigotry ;  I  rather 
proposed  it  as  a  pious  opinion — to  the  effect  that 
in  literature  the  finest  things  are  not  designed. 
And  I  confess,  that  at  first  sight  this  matter  of 
Bacbuc  and  her  allocution  looks  rather  like  an 
exception  to  the  rule,  a  proof  that  Rabelais,  at  all 
events,  understood  clearly  what  he  was  doing. 


Hieroglyphics  141 

Well,  it  may  have  been  so ;  for  Rabelais 
was,  as  I  think  I  have  shown,  a  very  exceptional 
man,  whom  it  would  be  difficult  to  place  in  any 
class.  But  I  hardly  think  this  is  an  instance  of 
the  proverbial  (and  fallacious)  exception  that 
proves  the  rule.  In  the  first  place  I  believe  that 
some  French  editors  have  grave  doubts  whether 
Rabelais  wrote  the  fifth  book  at  all ;  but  I  am 
not  inclined  to  press  this  point.  My  point  is  that 
the  allocution  of  Bacbuc  and  all  these  chapters 
which  describe  the  Oracle  of  the  Holy  Bottle  are 
the  last  in  the  book — the  last  words  of  the 
author ;  and  I  am  in  no  way  concerned  to 
defend  the  position  that  an  author  must  always 
remain  unconscious  of  the  work  that  he  has  done. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  I  think  that  always,  or 
almost  always,  he  is  unconscious  while  he  is 
writing  ;  but  I  see  no  reason  why  the  revelation 
may  not  come  to  him  afterwards,  especially  in 
such  a  case  as  the  Pantagruel,  which  was  the 
affair  of  many  years — of  a  lifetime,  indeed.  In 
the  beginning  of  production,  in  the  youth,  the 
springtime  of  artistic  work,  the  creative  influence 
prevails,  and  this,  it  seems  to  me,  always  or 
almost  always  operates  secretly  ;  but  in  later 
years  the  critical  spirit  is  apt  to  assert  itself,  and 
this  will  lead,  very  naturally,  to  the  artist's  under- 
standing more  plainly  the  nature  of  his  accom- 
pUshment.      Rabelais    had    a    long,    wonderful 


142  Hieroglyphics 

career  ;  his  life  was  full  of  incident,  of  violent 
breaks,  and  his  books  were  produced  at  intervals, 
and  it  seems  to  me  very  possible  that,  towards 
the  end,  he  may  have  reflected  on  what  he  had 
done,  and  have  understood  in  part,  at  all  events, 
the  sense  of  the  amazing  message  that  he  had 
delivered.  This,  I  think,  is  the  explanation  of 
the  "  Holy  Bottle  "  chapters,  and  you  will  note 
that,  admirable  as  criticism,  they  are  inferior  as 
art  to  those  astounding  early  pages  where  there 
is  no  hint  of  conscious  workmanship,  but  rather 
evidence  of  a  man  for  whom  the  world  has  been 
transformed,  who  has  been  visited  by  an 
astounding  vision.  He  takes  an  old,  popular  story 
about  a  giant,  he  takes  the  vine  that  flourishes  in 
his  native  Chinonnais,  he  takes  the  New  Learning 
that  seems  to  him  like  the  New  Wine,  he  takes  the 
gross  tale  of  the  farmhouse  and  the  tavern,  the 
rank  speech  of  the  people,  and  with  these 
elements,  with  these  "  facts,"  he  symbolises  the 
revelation  that  he  has  received.  He  writes,  he 
writes  on,  he  writes  madly,  and  every  line  is 
written  in  a  fury  of  delight ;  but,  I  think  I  may 
say,  there  is  at  the  moment  of  writing  no 
conscious  apperception  of  all  that  that  torrent  of 
words  conveys  and  implies.  That  may  well  come 
later ;  one  may  well  begin  with  legend : 
"  Grandgousier  was  a  good  drinker,"  and  end 
with  the  interpretation  :    "  All  truth  and  every 


Hieroglyphics  143 

philosophy  is  contained  in  wine  "  ;  but  I  believe 
that  if  Rabelais  had  perceived  this  at  the 
beginning  he  would  have  been  not  an  artist  but 
a  philosopher. 

Well,  if  you  are  content  with  this  comment 
on  Bacbuc,  I  should  like  to  give  you  a  very 
curious  instance  of  our  own  day,  in  which  the 
unconscious  artist  has  been  subdued  by  the 
conscious  preacher.  You  remember  those  very 
notable  books  :  Keynotes  and  Discords  ?  I  have 
not  seen  them  for  some  time,  so  I  am  afraid  my 
criticism  will  be  very  loose  and  general,  but  I 
think  that  the  two  volumes  mark  very  well  the 
fatal  descent  from  the  higher  to  the  lower 
ground.  In  the  first,  it  seems  to  me,  there  is  a 
somewhat  slight,  but  very  genuine,  note  of 
ecstasy  ;  I  mean  that  you  can  collect  a  certain 
distinct  image  of  real  womanhood — not  the 
laboured,  foolish,  inane  psychology  of  George 
Meredith  and  those  who  work  with  him — not 
the  analysis  of  the  surface,  of  the  "  society  " 
woman,  belonging  to  a  particular  grade  and  a 
particular  period,  but  of  the  very  woman  who 
remains  really  the  same  in  all  social  grades  and 
in  all  ages.  I  remember  thinking  when  I  read 
Keynotes  that  it  was  a  "  lonely  "  book  ;  it  hinted, 
I  think,  a  soul  apart,  and  afar  from  the  secondary, 
tertiary  problems  of  an  organised  civihsation, 
and  though  there  was  an  undertone  of  "  preach- 


144  Hieroglyphics 

ing "  and  arguing,  the  total  impression  was 
curiously  and  beautifully  artistic,  I  found,  if 
I  remember  rightly,  that  subordination  of  the 
accidental  to  the  essential  that  I  praised  in  Two 
on  a  Tower,  and  I  am  the  more  convinced  that  this 
is  so  by  my  own  recollections.  I  have  forgotten 
all  about  social  conditions,  if  any  such  things 
are  indicated  ;  I  only  think  of  women  and  of 
men,  of  the  true,  inalterable  human  nature  ; 
and  here,  it  seems  to  me,  you  have  a  very  high 
achievement.  But  the  next  volume.  Discords^ 
took  distinctly  lower  ground.  The  artifice  was 
better,  the  stories,  as  stories,  were  told  with  more 
skill  and  more  deftness  than  anything  in  Key- 
notes ;  but  there  was  no  more  literature  ;  there 
was  only  the  "  literature  of  the  subject."  The 
incidents  were  no  longer  symbols  of  an  emotion  ; 
they  had  become  the  basis  of  an  agitation, 
concerning  which  my  curiosity  never  led  me 
to  inquire  further  :  and  there  you  see  another 
proof  of  the  unconsciousness  of  art.  If 
the  author  of  Keynotes  had  understood  her 
achievement  Discords  would  never  have  been 
written.  One  might  continue  the  catena  almost 
ad  infinitum  :  would  not  Wordsworth,  supposing 
him  to  have  been  a  conscious  artist,  have  rather 
cut  off  his  right  hand  than  have  suffered  such  a 
magisterium  as  the  Ode  on  Intimations  of  Im- 
mortality  to   have   the   companionship   of   the 


Hieroglyphics  145 

enormous  mass  of  futility  and  stupidity  which 
constitutes  the  greater  part  of  the  complete 
works  ? 

Well,  there  is  the  evidence  that  must  guide  us 
in  answering  the  question  you  propounded,  and 
it  shows,  conclusively  enough,  I  think,  that  art 
is  not,  in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of  the  term, 
a  conscious  product.  Perhaps  it  would  be  a 
perilous  dogmatism,  on  the  other  hand,  defi- 
nitely to  pronounce  it  to  be  unconscious ;  and 
I  expect  we  had  better  take  refuge  in  the  sub- 
conscious, that  convenient  name  for  the  transcen- 
dental element  in  human  nature.  For  myself, 
I  like  best  my  old  figure  of  the  Shadowy  Com- 
panion, the  invisible  attendant  who  walks  all  the 
way  beside  us,  though  his  feet  are  in  the  Other 
World  ;  and  I  think  that  it  is  he  who  whispers 
to  us  his  ineffable  secrets,  which  we  clumsily 
endeavour  to  set  down  in  mortal  language.  I 
think  that  while  the  artist  works  he  is  conscious 
of  joy  and  of  nothing  more  ;  he  works  beauti- 
fully but  he  could  give  no  rationale  of  the  process, 
and  when  he  endeavours  to  explain  himself  we 
are  often  perplexed  by  this  strange  spectacle 
of  a  man  wholly  ignorant  of  his  own  creation. 
Consider  again  the  grotesqueness  of  that  preface 
to  Pickwick  ;  it  is  really  as  if  a  great  sculptor, 
congratulated  on  his  achievement,  should  answer 
that  his  Venus  was  indeed  beautiful — because  it 

K 


146  Hieroglyphics 

tended  to  improve  the  marble  industry  and  the 
general  knowledge  of  anatomy. 

And  after  all  the  conclusion  does  return  to  us 
from  other  than  literary  sources.     You  cannot 
conceive  a  builder  of  the  fourteenth  century 
hesitating  as  to  the  respective  merits  of  Roman- 
esque, Norman,  First  and  Second  Pointed  ;    to 
him  there  was  only  one  possible  method,  and 
he  built,  as  he  spoke,  without  calculation  and 
without  conscious  effort,  only  knowing  the  joy  of 
his  work.    So  indeed  we  all  speak  and  live  when 
we  are  not  bound  by  convention  and  acquired 
usages    and    manners,    and    you    see    that    art, 
properly  so  called,  takes  its  place  in  the  great 
scheme  of  things ;    it  is  no  studied  contortion, 
no  strange  trick  acquired  by  the  late  ingenuity 
of  man,  but  as  "  natural  "  (  and  as  supernatural) 
as  the  blossoming  of  a  flower,  and  the  singing  of 
the  nightingale.    Art,  indeed,  is  wholly  natural, 
artifice  is  more  or  less  acquired,  the  creature  of 
reason,  of  experiment,  of  systematised  intelli- 
gence.    It  is  doubtful,  I  suppose,  whether  the 
natural,    untaught    man    has    of    himself,    by 
endowment,    any    artifice    at    all ;     doubtful, 
perhaps,  whether,  in  the  beginning,  his  artifice 
was  not  the  product  of  his  art ;  whether  he  did 
not  learn  to  speak  with  artifice  because  he  had 
received  from  nature  the  art  of  singing ;  certainly 
the    child,    entering    the    world,    has    not    the 


Hieroglyphics  i47 

inborn  artifice  of  the  swallow  and  the  bee.  This 
artifice,  it  seems,  man  has  been  forced  to  acquire 
by  slow  and  painful  degrees,  and  perhaps  it 
only  differs  from  the  artifice  of  animals  in  that 
it  has  been  aided  and  reinforced  by  imagination, 
that  is  by  art,  that  is  by  the  power  the  human 
soul  possesses  of  projecting  itself  into  the  un- 
known, and  adventuring  in  the  realm  of  nothing- 
ness. Man,  I  mean,  could  never  have  invented 
the  telephone  had  he  not  first  created  it,  had 
he  not  conceived  the  possibility  of  its  existence, 
when  as  yet  it  was  non-existent,  and  so  his 
artifice  will  always  be  progressive,  and  dis- 
tinguished from  the  artifice  of  animals. 

But  art  is  born  with  man,  and  is  of  the  essence, 
the  very  differentia  of  man.  It  is  of  his  very 
inmost  being,  and  therefore,  I  suppose,  is  re- 
moved from  his  consciousness  simply  because 
it  is  within  and  not  from  without.  You  may  say 
that  I  have  been  vague,  that  I  have  not  solved 
the  problem  I  propounded,  that  I  have  not  clearly 
explained  whether  the  Greeks  knew  what  they  did 
when  they  worshipped  Dionysus,  whether  Ra- 
belais was  conscious  of  an  inner  meaning  in 
his  praise  of  wine,  whether  Dickens  understood 
the  value  of  his  punch  and  brandy.  But  if  I  have 
been  vague  it  is  because  man,  in  the  last  analysis, 
is  a  tremendous  mystery,  because  he  is  a  complex 
being,   because   he  is  at   once    Pantagruel    and 


148  Hieroglyphics 

Panurge  and  Frere  Jean,  because  he  is  both 
Don  Quixote  and  Sancho  Panza.  In  some  cases 
Pantagruel  and  Panurge  seem  to  speak  a  common 
language,  to  be  able  to  communicate  the  one 
with  the  other  :  i£  Rabelais  wrote  the  "  Dive 
Bouteille "  chapters,  he  certainly  understood 
much  of  that  which  he  had  expressed  in  symbols. 
Sometimes  the  two  seem  like  foreigners  in  one 
home,  Pantagruel  dictates  and  Panurge  the 
scribe  writes  down  his  words,  hardly  or  not  at 
all  comprehending  the  magic  symbols  that  he 
expresses.  So  Dickens  ludicrously  misinterprets 
his  own  Pickwick.  And,  doubtless,  this  under- 
standing of  the  artificer  of  the  artist  varies  in 
an  almost  infinite  chain  of  nuances  :  there  have 
been  artists,  perhaps,  who  have  worked  like 
men  under  the  influence  of  haschish,  who  have 
opened  their  mouths  and  prophesied,  and  then 
recovering  from  the  possession  have  sat  up  and 
stared,  and  asked  where  they  were,  and  what 
they  had  been  doing.  Indeed,  it  may  be  that 
this  was  the  condition  of  the  working  of  art  in  the 
very  dawn  of  human  life,  for  this,  no  doubt, 
is  the  explanation  of  that  old  equation  in  which 
bards,  magicians,  seers,  prophets,  and  madmen 
ranked  all  together  as  men  who  spoke  and  worked 
miracles,  things  unintelligible  to  the  "  common 
sense,"  to  the  understanding  which  regulates  and 
arranges  the  affairs  of  the  common  life.    All  these 


Hieroglyphics  1 49 

were  alike  men  of  the  mountains,  men  who 
withdrew  from  the  camp,  and  went  apart  into 
high  solitary  places,  into  the  lonely  wilderness, 
into  the  forest,  and  in  such  retirements  and 
cells  they  uttered  the  voices  that  came  to  them, 
speaking  words  that  were  unintelligible  to 
themselves. 

On  the  other  hand  there  may  have  been 
artists  in  whom  the  two  persons  have  been 
happily  reconciled,  who  have  not  only  the  "  gift 
of  tongues "  but  also  the  gift  of  the  inter- 
pretation of  tongues.  Even  these,  I  think,  are 
always  "  possessed,"  ecstatic,  rapt  from  their 
common  nature  at  the  moment  of  inspiration, 
but  afterwards,  when  the  magic  song  is  done, 
they  awake  and  return  and  remember  and 
understand,  in  a  measure  at  least,  the  meaning 
of  their  prophecies.  They  never  wholly  under- 
stand, they  are  never  able  to  express  in  rational 
terms  the  whole  force  of  the  message,  for  the 
good  reason  that  the  language  of  the  soul 
infinitely  transcends  the  language  of  the  under- 
standing ;  because  art  is,  indeed,  the  sole 
channel  by  which  the  highest  and  purest  truth 
can  reach  us.  You  may,  perhaps,  succeed  in 
giving  a  Boer  "  some  notion  "  of  a  Greek  chorus 
through  the  medium  of  the  "  Taal,"  but  it  would 
be  vain  to  dream  of  translating  almost  perfect 
beauty  into  that  poor  medium,  framed  for  the 


150  Hieroglyphics 

temporary  and  corporal  necessities  o£  rough  and 
illiterate  farmers.  And  so,  however  well 
an  artist  or  those  who  appreciate  his  work  may 
"  understand "  his  meaning,  they  do  but 
"  understand  "  a  little  ;  since  the  tongue  o£  art 
has  many  words  which  have  no  rendering  in  the 
speech  o£  the  understanding. 

Here,  then,  is  another  form  of  our  text  which 
enables  us  to  separate  art  from  artifice,  literature 
from  reading-matter.  Artifice  is  explicable ; 
you  remember  that  someone  has  said  Thackeray 
was  simply  the  ordinary  clubman  flus  genius  and 
a  style.  We  must  correct  his  phrases  :  but  if 
you  substitute  an  "  immense  talent  of  observa- 
tion "  for  genius,  and  a  "  great  gift  of  expression" 
for  style,  I  think  the  definition  admirable. 
Thackeray,  in  short,  is  the  clubman  of  heightened 
faculties ;  he  differs  not  in  quiddity  but  in  quality 
and  quantity  from  his  neighbour  at  the  window  ; 
he  looks  more  closely  than  Tom  Eaves,  and  he 
can  give  you  the  result  of  his  inspection  in  better 
phrases  and  with  a  better  system,  but  he  looks 
at  the  same  things  from  the  same  standpoint, 
and  you  and  I  can  admire  his  work  and  be  amused 
and  delighted  by  it,  but  we  have  no  sense  of 
miracle,  of  transcendent  vision  and  achievement. 
We  simply  see  a  man  who  does  the  things  that 
we  do,  but  does  them  with  a  far  greater  dex- 
terity :    you   may   watch   an   acrobat   with   an 


Hieroglyphics  151 

immense  admiration,  but  you  recognise  that  you, 
too,  are  potentially  an  acrobat,  that  with  a  little 
training  you,  too,  could  hang  by  the  heels,  though 
not  with  such  grace,  nor  for  so  long  a  time. 

But  art  is  always  miraculous.  In  its  origin,  in 
its  working,  in  its  results  it  is  beyond  and  above 
explanation,  and  the  artist's  unconsciousness  is 
only  one  phase  of  its  infinite  mysteries. 


VI 


I  AM  afraid  that  at  our  last  conversation  I 
rather  spoke  to  you  "  as  if  you  were  a 
pubHc  meeting."  Not  precisely  in  that  manner, 
perhaps,  since  no  public  meeting  that  I  can 
imagine  would  have  stood  me  for  a  moment, 
but  I  fear  that  I  was  what  is  called  "  high- 
flown."  And  yet  how  can  one  avoid  that 
reproach  ?  Look  here :  let  us  suppose  an 
examination  paper,  and  the  following  questions 
set. 

1.  Explain,  in  rational  terms.  The  Quest  of  the 
Holy  Graal.  State  whether  in  your  opinion 
such  a  vessel  ever  existed,  and  if  you  think  it  did 
not,  justify  your  pleasure  in  reading  the  account 
of  the  search  for  it. 

2.  Explain,  logically,  your  delight  in  colour. 
State,  in  terms  that  Voltaire  would  have  under- 
stood, the  meaning  of  the  phrase,  "  the  beauty 
of  hne." 

3.  What  do  you  mean  by  the  word  "  music  "  ? 
Give  the  rational  explanation  of  Bach's  Fugues, 

152 


Hieroglyphics  i53 

showing  them  to  be  as  (i)  true  as  Biology  and 
(2)  useful  as  Applied  Mechanics. 

4.  Estimate  the  value  of  Westminster  Abbey 
in  the  avoirdupois  measure. 

5.  "  The  Hght  that  never  was  on  land  or  sea." 
What  Hght  ? 

6.  "  Faery  lands  forlorn."  Draw  a  map  of 
the  district  in  question,  putting  in  principal 
towns  and  naming  exports. 

7.  Show  that  "  heaven  lies  about  us  in  our 
infancy "  must  mean  "  wholesome  maternal 
influences  surround  us  in  our  childhood." 

You  say  that  is  all  nonsense  ?  that  one  cannot 
express  art  of  any  kind  in  the  terms  of  rational- 
ism ?  Well,  I  agree  with  you  that  it  is  nonsense  ; 
that  the  tables  of  weights  and  measures  give 
no  aesthetic  guide  to  the  value  of  Westminster 
Abbey  ;  but  if  we  agree  on  this  I  am  afraid  that 
we  must  be  content  to  be  called  high-flown. 
Having  once  for  all  settled  that  "  common 
sense  "  has  nothing  to  do  with  literary  art,  we 
must  be,  I  suppose,  uncommon,  and  (apparently) 
nonsensical  if  we  want  to  talk  about  it  to  any 
profit.  That  is  what  it  comes  to,  after  all.  If 
literature  be  a  kind  of  dignified  reporting,  in 
which  the  reporter  is  at  liberty  to  invent  some 
incidents  and  leave  out  others,  and  to  arrange 
all  in  the  order  that  pleases  him  best  ;   then,  let 


1 54  Hieroglyphics 

us  have  as  much  "  common  sense  "  and  "  ration- 
alism "  as  you  please,  and  the  more  the  better  ; 
but  if  literature  is  a  mysterious  ecstasy,  the 
withdrawal  from  all  common  and  ordinary 
conditions — well,  I  suppose,  we  had  better  be 
mystics  when  we  discuss  the  subject,  and  frankly 
confess  that  with  its  first  principles  logic  has 
nothing  to  do.  I  suppose  that  there  are  only 
two  parties  in  the  world  :  the  Rationalists  and  the 
Mystics,  and  one's  vote  on  literature  goes  with 
one's  party.  One  might  leave  the  matter  there, 
and  amiably  agree  to  differ  with  the  other  side  ; 
but  I,  personally,  have  the  ferocity  to  insist 
that  my  side,  the  mystical,  is  wholly  right,  and 
the  other,  the  rationalist,  wholly  wrong,  and 
moreover  I  shall  be  so  indecent  as  to  prove  the 
truth  of  my  position.  But,  I  have  done  so,  and 
with  that  "  Examination  Paper  "  I  just  read  out 
to  you.  For  if  rationalism  be  the  truth,  then 
all  literature,  all  that  both  sides  agree  in  thinking 
the  finest  literature,  is  simple  lunacy,  and  all  the 
world  of  the  arts  must  go  into  the  region  of 
mania.  Take  the  lowest,  the  simplest  instance. 
Here  is  a  knife  with  a  wooden  handle,  and  the 
handle  has  certain  curious  carved  designs  on  it, 
which  do  not  enable  it  to  be  held  better.  Why  is 
this  knife  better,  more  to  be  valued,  than  that 
other  knife,  which  is  not  decorated  at  all  ?  It 
does   not   cut  better ;    it  does   not  justify  its 


Hieroglyphics  1 5  5 

existence  and  purpose  as  a  knife  more  than  the 
other  ;  where  is  its  superiority  ?  Because  I  find 
pleasure  in  seeing  those  designs  ?  But  why  do  I 
find  any  pleasure  in  ornament  ?  What  is  the 
rationalistic  justification  for  that  pleasure  ? 
By  logical  definition  a  knife  is  an  instrument  for 
cutting,  and  nothing  else  ;  the  plain  cuts  as  well 
as  the  ornate  ;  why  then  are  you  sorry  if  you 
lose  the  one,  while  you  don't  care  twopence  for 
the  loss  of  the  other  ?  You  have  at  last  to  answer 
that  you  have  a  joy  which  you  cannot  in  any 
way  define  in  the  purely  decorative  pattern  ;  and 
with  that  answer  the  whole  system  of  Rationahsm 
topples  over.  Rationalism  may  say  to  you :  Either 
give  a  definite  reason  for  going  to  Mass,  or  leave 
off  going.  You  have  only  to  answer  :  Your  com- 
mand is  based  on  the  premiss  that  one  should  do 
nothing  without  being  able  to  give  a  definite 
reason  for  it.  But  I  can  give  no  definite  reason 
for  liking  the  Odyssey  or  a  curiously  carved 
knife,  and  yet  you  confess  that  I  am  right  in 
liking  these  things.  Then  I  have  proved  the 
contradictory  of  your  premiss,  as  you  have 
admitted  that  there  are  things  that  one  may  do 
without  being  able  to  give  a  definite  reason  for 
doing  them  :  ergo,  I  shall  not  neglect  the 
"  parson's  bell." 

Of  course,  all  this  is  altogether  outside  of  my 
business  ;    but  I  confess  I  am  fond  of  carrying 


156  Hieroglyphics 

things  to  their  limits.  You  remember  how  poor 
S.  T.  C.  used  to  talk,  humbly  and  yet  proudly,  of 
"  my  system,"  though  I  am  afraid  "  my  system  " 
never  emerged  from  the  state  of  fragments  and 
disjecta  membra.  And  I  too,  though  I  have  only 
broken  morsels  and  ruinous  stones  to  show  for 
the  splendid  outlines  and  indicated  arches  of 
Coleridge,  still  like  to  follow  up  an  argument 
whithersoever  it  will  lead  me,  regardless  of 
consequences  ;  and  this,  I  am  sure,  should  count 
for  righteousness  with  our  friends  the  rational- 
ists. I  love  to  start  a  sorites,  something  as 
follows :  I  admire  that  odd  but  beautiful  httle 
decorative  scheme  on  the  seventeenth-century 
chest,  and  therefore  I  think  poetry,  as  poetry, 
finer  than  prose,  as  prose.  Hence  I  approve  of 
"  Ritualism  "  in  the  service  of  the  church,  and 
from  the  same  premiss  I  draw  the  conclusion 
that  Keats  was  a  poet  and  that  Pope  was  not. 
Pope  not  being  a  poet,  it  follows  that  to  "  intone" 
is  in  every  way  better  than  to  "  read "  the 
Liturgy  and  the  Offices,  and  "  reading "  the 
service  being  wrong,  you  will  easily  infer  that  I 
dislike  Mr.  Frith's  pictures.  And  after  learning 
that  I  do  not  care  for  the  "  Derby  Day,"  you 
will  scarcely  require  my  opinion  as  to  the 
(theoretical)  righteousness  of  the  first  Reform 
Bill,  and  from  my  attitude  towards  Lord  John 
Russell's  measure,  you  can,  of  course,  guess  my 


Hieroglyphics  157 

opinion  on  the  respective  merits  of  the  French 
and  EngUsh  languages  as  literary  instruments. 
And  French  being  vastly  inferior  to  English,  it 
necessarily  follows  that  the  English  Reformation 
was  a  great  (though  perhaps  unavoidable)  mis- 
fortune. Hence,  you  see,  admiring  certain  lines 
cut  in  an  old  oaken  box,  I  am  led  by  the  strictest 
logic  to  dislike  the  religious  policy  of  Edward 
VI,  with  all  the  other  consequences  in  order  ; 
and  on  the  other  hand  if  I  saw  no  sense  in  that 
rude  ornament  I  should  be  an  Atheist,  or,  at 
the  mildest,  an  attendant  at  Pleasant  Sunday 
Afternoons,  with  George  Eliot  for  my  favourite 
reading. 

Yes,  I  Uke  my  theories  to  "  work  through," 
and  I  confess  that  my  belief  in  the  truth  of  "  my 
system  "  is  very  much  strengthened  by  the  fact 
that  it  does  "  work  through,"  that  it  seems  to  me 
justified  by  the  facts  of  life.  I  mean  that  the 
premiss  which  enables  me  to  declare  Keats  to  be 
a  poet  and  Pope  not  to  be  a  poet  does  really 
enable  me  to  pronounce  democracy  to  be  a  bad 
system  in  theory,  and  the  premiss  baldly  stated 
is  simply  this  :  that  logic  does  not  cover  life,  or 
in  other  words,  that  life  cannot  be  judged  by  the 
rules  of  logic,  of  common  sense. 

But  yet  I  am  using  logic  all  the  time,  you 
say  ?  Certainly,  but  I  am  using  it  in  its  right 
place,  to  do  the  work  for  which  it  is  competent. 


158  Hieroglyphics 

If  I  say  that  a  scythe  is  not  exactly  the  instrument 
for  performing  a  surgical  operation,  I  am  not 
therefore  bound  to  have  my  meadow  mown  with 
a  bistoury  ?  A  microscope  is  good  and  a  telescope 
is  good,  but  it  is  the  microscope  that  one  uses  in 
bacteriology.  You  know,  don't  you  ?  that  ever 
since  that  unhappy  Reformation  of  ours  people 
have  been  talking  nonsense  about  the  Aristo- 
telian logic,  and  fumbling,  in  the  most  grotesque 
manner,  for  some  "  new "  logic.  Our  great 
false  prophet  Bacon  (a  wretch  infinitely  more 
guilty  than  Hobbes)  began  it  in  England  with  his 
Novum  Organum ;  and  if  you  wish  really  to 
estimate  "  educated  "  folly,  to  touch  the  bottom 
of  the  incredible  depths  to  which  a  man  of 
information  may  sink,  read  Macaulay's  com- 
parison of  the  "  old  "  philosophy  and  the  "  new  " 
philosophy.  The  essayist  says  that  the  "  old  " 
philosophy  was  no  good,  because  it  never  led  up 
to  the  steam-engine  and  the  telegraph-post. 
Isn't  it  almost  humiUating  to  think  that  we  have 
to  acknowledge  ourselves  of  the  same  genus  as 
that  "  brilHant  "  Macaulay  ?  But  if  I  told  you 
that  the  Greek  alphabet  was  no  good  because 
it  has  never  grilled  a  single  steak  you  would 
probably  get  uneasy  and  make  for  the  door,  and 
if  you  were  charitable  you  would  tell  the  land- 
lady that  I  ought  to  be  "  taken  care  of."  But 
such  a  remark  as  that  is  no  whit  more  lunatic 


Hieroglyphics  1 5  9 

than  Macaulay's  "  comparison  "  between  phil- 
osophy, properly  so  called,  and  physical  science 
applied  to  utiHtarian  purposes.  Well,  all  the 
portentous  stuff  that  has  been  written  about 
logic  is  nonsense  of  exactly  the  same  kind.  The 
scholastic  logic,  people  said,  won't  discover  the 
truth.  That  is  perfectly  true,  but  then  the 
scholastic  logic  was  not  intended  to  discover 
truth.  It  will  draw  conclusions  from  truths 
already  discovered,  from  premisses  granted,  but 
it  won't  make  premisses  any  more  than  a  scythe 
will  make  grass.  And  it  is,  curiously  enough,  the 
very  class  of  people  who  despise  the  formal  logic 
who  insist  on  your  giving  logical  reasons  for 
actions  and  emotions  which  are  altogether 
outside  the  jurisdiction  of  logic.  With  one 
breath  they  say  :  Aristotle  is  useless,  because  the 
Organon  could  never  have  led  men  to  discover 
the  stomach-pump  ;  and  with  the  next  breath 
they  ask  you  what  you  mean  by  admiring  the  Ode 
on  a  Grecian  Urn  if  you  can't  give  any  logical 
reason  for  your  admiration.  Your  religion  doesn't 
rest  on  a  logical  foundation,  they  say.  But  does 
anything  of  any  consequence  rest  on  a  logical 
foundation  ?  Can  you  reduce  the  Morte 
(V Arthur  into  valid  syllogisms  in  Barbara,  ? 
can  you  "  disprove  "  Salisbury  Cathedral  by 
the  aid  of  Celarent.  What  is  the  "  rational  " 
explanation  of  our  wonder  and  joy  at  the  vision 


1 6o  Hieroglyphics 

of  the  hills  ?  Are  a  great  symphony,  the  swell 
and  triumph  of  the  organ,  the  voices  of  the 
choristers,  to  be  tested  by  the  process  of  the 
understanding  ?  But  perhaps  I  am  misjudging 
the  people  who  ask  these  questions.  When  they 
say  that  logic  does  not  discover  truth,  they 
doubtless  mean  by  logic  that  formal  analysis  of 
the  ratiocinative  process  that  is  rightly  so  called  ; 
but  I  am  incHned  to  think  that  when  they 
condemn  religious  or  artistic  emotions  because 
they  are  "  illogical,"  they  mean  by  "  illogical  " 
that  which  does  not  conduce  to  the  ease  and 
comfort  of  the  digestive  apparatus  or  the  money- 
making  faculty.  They  are  terrible  fellows,  you 
know,  some  of  these  persons.  For  example,  I 
asked,  with  a  tone  of  undue  triumph,  I  am 
afraid,  for  the  "  reason  why  "  we  experience  awe 
and  delight  in  the  presence  of  the  hills.  But  in 
certain  quarters  my  problem  would  be  very  quickly 
solved.  I  should  be  told,  more  in  sorrow  than 
in  anger,  that  my  emotion  at  the  sight  of  certain 
shapes  of  earth  was  due  to  the  fact  that  hill  air 
was  highly  ozonised,  and  that  the  human  race  had 
acquired  an  instinctive  pleasure  in  breathing  it, 
greatly  to  its  digestive  profit.  And  if  I  tried  to 
turn  the  tables  by  declaring  that  I  experienced  an 
equal,  though  a  diiferent  delight  in  the  spectacle 
of  a  desolate,  smoking  marsh,  where  a  red  sun 
sinks  from  a  world  of  shivering  reeds,  I  suppose 


Hieroglyphics  1 6 1 

I  should  hear  that  some  remote  ancestor  of  mine 
had  found  in  some  such  place  "  pterodactyls 
plentiful  and  strong  on  the  wing,"  and  if  I  like 
the  woods  it  was  because  a  monkey  sat  at  the 
root  of  my  family  tree,  and  if  I  love  an  ancient 
garden  it  is  because  I  am  "  second  cousin  to  the 


worm." 


There  :  I  confess  it  is  difficult  to  keep  one's 
temper  with  these  people,  but  one  must  try  to 
do  so.  Do  you  remember  how  Trunnion's 
marriage  was  delayed  ?  The  bridegroom  set  out 
bravely  with  his  retinue  for  the  parish  church, 
where  the  bride  waited  a  whole  half-hour — in 
vain.    A  messenger  was  sent  who  saw  : 

"  The  whole  troop  disposed  in  a  long  field, 
crossing  the  road  obliquely,  and  headed  by  the 
bridegroom  and  his  friend  Hatchway,  who 
finding  himself  hindered  by  a  hedge  from  pro- 
ceeding farther  in  the  same  direction,  fired  a 
pistol  and  stood  over  to  the  other  side,  making 
an  obtuse  angle  with  the  line  of  his  former 
course  ;  and  the  rest  of  the  squadron  followed 
his  example,  keeping  always  in  the  rear  of  each 
other  like  a  flight  of  wild  geese. 

"  Surprised  at  this  strange  method  of  journey- 
ing, the  messenger  came  up  .  .  .  and  desired  he 
would  proceed  with  more  expedition.  To  this 
message  Mr.  Trunnion  replied,  '  Hark  ye, 
brother,  don't  you  see  we  make  all  possible  speed  ? 

L 


1 6  2  Hieroglyphics 

Go  back,  and  tell  those  who  sent  you  that  the 
wind  has  shifted  since  we  weighed  anchor,  and 
that  we  are  obliged  to  make  short  trips  in  tacking, 
by  reason  of  the  narrowness  of  the  channel ; 
and  that,  as  we  lie  within  six  points  of  the  wind, 
they  must  make  some  allowance  for  variation 
and  leeway.'  '  Lord,  sir  !  '  said  the  valet,  '  what 
occasion  have  you  to  go  zig-zag  in  that  manner  ? 
Do  but  clap  spurs  to  your  horses  and  ride  straight 
forward,  and  I'll  engage  you  shall  be  at  the 
church  porch  in  less  than  a  quarter  of  an  hour.' 
*  What  !  right  in  the  wind's  eye  ?  '  answered  the 
commander.  '  Ahey  !  brother,  where  did  you 
learn  your  navigation  ?  '  " 

You  see  Commodore  Trunnion's  "  logic  "  was 
perfect,  only  it  was  the  logic  of  seamanship  and 
not  of  riding  to  church  on  horseback.  There  are 
a  good  many  people  at  the  present  day  who  are 
quite  unable  to  get  to  church  in  time,  for 
"  reasons  "  as  valid  as  Trunnion's ;  and  when  I 
hear  of  "  the  scientific  basis  of  literature  "  I  am 
always  a  little  reminded  of  those  scarecrows 
straggling  in  short  tacks  from  one  side  of  the  lane 
to  the  other  on  their  way  to  the  wedding.  The 
moral  is,  you  know,  that  they  didn't  get  there. 

I  tackled  a  materiahst  once  on  very  similar 
lines.  He  began  by  saying  that  time  and  thought 
devoted  to  religion  (they  never  see  that  art  and 
religion  stand  or  fall  together,  religion  being  the 


Hieroglyphics  163 

foundation  of  the  fine  arts)  were  an  utter  waste 
of  time,  as  they  only  diverted  us  from  considera- 
tion of  the  present  world,  which  we  ought  to 
study  to  the  utmost  ;  and  he  went  on  to  praise 
some  saying  of  Confucius  on  the  folly  of  troub- 
ling about  the  future  things.     Then  I  went  for 
him.    He  had  to  admit  that  agriculture  is  good, 
and   I   pointed  out   to  him  that  England  was 
changed  from  a  savage  wilderness  into  a  pleasant 
garden  by  the  monastic  houses.    He  agreed  that 
to  found  and  endow  hospitals  and  almshouses 
was  not  precisely  a  waste  of  time,  and  I  showed 
him  that  such  institutions  were  begun  by  the 
religion  of  the  past  and  carried  on  by  the  religion 
of  the  present.    Then  he  allowed,  in  response  to 
my  Socratic  question,  that  painting  was  some- 
thing,   and   I    demonstrated    that    all   painting 
arose    from    the    religious    impulse,    that    the 
greatest  paintings  in  the  world  were  meant  to 
adorn  churches.    Then  he  admitted  the  value  of 
architecture,  and  he  got  the  Parthenon,  all  the 
mediaeval  cathedrals,  and  the  wonderful  mound 
temples  of  Ceylon  right  at  his  head.    He  granted 
me  that  travel  civilised,  and  I  rubbed  in  the 
pilgrimage  ;    he  confessed  that  he  liked  to  read 
the  Latin  and  Greek  classics — sometimes — and 
he    received    from    me    information    as    to    the 
monastic  scriptorium,  and  its  part  in  the  pre- 
servation   of   the    old    literature.      As    for   the 


1 64  Hieroglyphics 

blessedness  of  forming  one's  character  on  the 
teaching  of  Confucius — there  happened  to  be  an 
article  in  the  morning's  paper  on  the  Mandarin 
class !  Well,  my  rationalist  hadn't  anything  to 
say  to  it  at  all,  with  the  exception  of  some  vague 
remark  that  the  Romans  made  roads,  which, 
considering  the  state  of  England  in  the  sixth 
century,  was  about  as  helpful  as  the  somewhat 
similar  remark  of  Mr.  F.'s  Aunt — that  there  are 
mile-stones  on  the  Dover  Road.  I  told  him 
that  the  only  Roman  civilisation  which  con- 
tributed to  the  making  of  our  country  was  that 
brought  over  by  St.  Austin  ;  and  he  had  to 
allow  that  his  statement  that  religion  was  a 
waste  of  time,  an  elaborate  form  of  idleness, 
was,  to  put  it  mildly,  not  proven.  Then  he  said 
kindly  but  firmly  that  religion  wasn't  rational, 
and  I  used  up  most  of  the  arguments  that  I  have 
used  to-night  ;  I  mean,  I  showed  him  that  it  is 
good  to  paint  pictures,  to  write  poems,  to  devise 
romances,  and  to  compose  symphonies,  and  that 
it  is  also  good  to  meditate  and  enjoy  all  these 
things.  Hence,  he  was  forced  to  admit  that  his 
suppressed  premiss  had  been  disproved,  and  that 
he  must  no  longer  say :  "  That  which  is  not 
rational  is  absurd." 

And  then,  I  think,  the  fun  really  began.  I 
carried  the  war  into  the  very  camp  of  the  enemy  ; 
that  is,   into   actual,   observable  life,  into  the 


Hieroglyphics  165 

everyday  world  of  fact  and  experience.  You 
talk  about  "  reason,"  I  said,  and  I  presume  you 
won't  mind  if  I  substitute,  occasionally,  "  com- 
mon sense  "  for  reason,  as  I  think  that  in  your 
phraseology  the  two  terms  are  very  fairly 
equated.  Very  well,  then,  don't  you  think  that 
there  is  a  good  deal  of  common  sense  in  many 
of  the  actions  of  animals  ]  Take  the  case  of  the 
small  birds  who  mob  an  owl  all  day,  in  order  that 
their  enemy  may  be  kept  awake,  and  so  unable 
to  hunt  at  night.  Take  the  case  of  the  ants,  who 
milk  the  aphides,  and  go  slave-hunting.  Take 
the  bees,  who  rise  to  an  emergency,  and  remedy, 
with  singular  contrivance,  the  threatened  lack  of 
a  queen.  Take  the  dog,  who  brought  a  wounded 
fellow  to  the  hospital  where  he  had  been  cured. 
All  these  are  instances  of  common  sense,  aren't 
they  ?  as  rational  as  the  telegram  "  Sell  Cobras 
at  once."  Very  good  ;  animals,  then,  have  a 
plentiful  supply  of  reason,  and  not  of  a  mere 
mechanical  reason,  but  of  reason  that  can  rise 
to  the  height  of  unforeseen  cases,  and  remedy 
unexpected  evils.  When  the  experimenter  tilted 
the  bees'  house  to  one  side,  so  that  the  equi- 
librium was  in  danger,  a  sufficient  number  of 
bees  climbed  up  and  placed  themselves  on 
the  other  side  so  that  they  constituted  a  balance  ; 
here  there  was  no  mechanism,  but  a  calculated 
and  rational  contrivance.     Animals,  then,  have 


1 6  6  Hieroglyphics 

reason  and  its  effect,  artifice  ;  the  adaptation  of 
means  to  secure  ends.  But,  then,  how  about 
instinct  ?  By  what  motion  does  the  swallow 
make  her  nest  in  spring  ?  Can  the  bee  demon- 
strate the  advantages  of  the  hexagon  cell  ? 
Does  the  fly,  laying  its  eggs  here  and  there,  in  this 
or  in  that  according  to  its  kind,  in  meat  or  in 
dung,  or  in  the  crevices  of  a  wall,  rationally 
foresee  that  it  is  providing  for  the  future  grub  its 
only  possible  food  ?  No  ;  but  then  animals, 
even,  perform  "  irrational  "  actions ;  though 
they  have  common  sense  they  do  things  which 
must  be  troublesome  to  them,  at  some  instance, 
which  is  not  common  sense.  But  if  a  bluebottle 
lays  her  eggs  in  my  beef,  and  knows  not  why, 
perhaps  I,  a  man,  may  sing  the  SanctuSy  and  pray 
that  I  may  be  joined  cum  angelis  et  archangelis, 
cum  thronis  et  dominationibus,  Cumque  omni 
militia  ccelestis  exercitus. 

And  consider  our  own  human  life  ;  the  great 
cou-ps  of  war,  commerce,  diplomacy,  of  all  the  con- 
duct of  life,  are  often,  or  usually,  the  result  of 
"  intuitions,"  that  is  of  irrational  and  inexplic- 
able mental  processes,  which  elude  all  analysis. 
If  the  knowledge,  the  successful  and  triumphant 
knowledge  of  men  and  affairs  and  strategy  were 
a  "  rational  "  product,  then,  indeed,  Carlyle's 
dictum  were  true,  and  each  one  of  us  were,  at 
choice,  a  man  of  genius  in  diplomacy,  or  business, 


Hieroglyphics  167 

or  battle.  We  know  that  it  is  not  so,  and  that  no 
man  by  taking  thought  can  make  himself,  say,  a 
Stonewall  Jackson.  And  we  have  all  heard  of  the 
"  woman's  reason  " — "  I  don't  know  why  I  am 
sure  that  x  =  a,  but  I  am  sure  " — and  this 
extremely  irrational  process  often  corresponds 
with  the  truth.  So,  I  finished  up,  your  "  reason," 
far  from  being  the  despot  of  the  world,  turns 
out  to  be  a  humble,  though  useful,  deputy- 
assistant  councillor-general,  and  is  by  no  means  a 
prerogative  force,  even  in  affairs  of  common, 
everyday  existence.  Why,  "  reason,"  alone  and 
unassisted,  won't  enable  you  to  make  a  decent 
living  by  selling  ribbons  and  laces,  and  you  have 
been  trying  to  make  me  accept  its  dictation  in  the 
highest  affairs  of  the  soul.  You  have  been  appeal- 
ing from  the  King's  Majesty  in  Council  to  the 
Magistrates  of  Little  Pedlington  in  Petty 
Sessions  assembled  ! 

Then  my  rationalist  made  a  point.  You  know, 
he  said,  that  some  men  seem  to  have  an  almost 
miraculous  skill  in  solving  mathematical  prob- 
lems :  would  you,  therefore,  give  up  teaching 
the  ordinary  arithmetic  ?  I  was  not  alarmed  ;  I 
pointed  out  that  the  analogy  was  not  quite 
perfect.  The  case,  I  said,  was  this.  A  certain 
number  of  "  problems  "  were,  confessedly, 
beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  the  "  ordinary 
arithmetic  "    altogether,    but   offered   no    diffi- 


1 6  8  Hieroglyphics 

culties  to  the  "  lightning  calculator,"  who 
obtained  results  that  were  demonstrably 
correct,  and  I  therefore  thought  it  well  to  trust 
to  him  in  all  problems  of  a  similar  character,  even 
though  the  "  ordinary  arithmetic,"  confessedly 
incompetent,  assured  me  that  his  answers  were 
wholly  unreliable — a  case  of  a  schoolboy,  well 
on  in  Colenso,  scouting  the  Binomial  Theorem 
because  one  couldn't  prove  it  by  Practice  or  the 
Rule  of  Three.  I  left  then,  unanswered,  and  I 
suppose  my  friend  passed  the  rest  of  the  evening 
in  showing  that  Salisbury  Cathedral  was  "  op- 
posed "  to  the  facts  of  Biology,  and  that  Sisters 
of  Charity  are  to  be  classed  with  criminal 
lunatics. 

But,  you  know,  I  was  the  real  lunatic.  You 
would  not  have  "  argued  "  with  me  if  I  had 
disparaged  the  Greek  alphabet  because  it  never 
grilled  a  single  steak  ;  I  hinted  the  course  you 
would  probably  have  pursued  if  I  had  chanced 
to  make  such  an  alarming  remark.  And  why 
should  I  argue  with  the  sect  of  Macaulay,  with 
the  tribe  which  utters  such  stuff  as  this : 

"  Assuredly  if  the  tree  which  Socrates  planted 
and  Plato  watered  is  to  be  judged  of  by  its 
flowers  and  leaves,  it  is  the  noblest  of  trees. 
But  if  we  take  the  homely  test  of  Bacon — if 
we  judge  the  tree  by  its  fruits — our  opinion 
of  it  may  be  less  favourable.    When  we  sum 


Hieroglyphics  169 

up  the  useful  truths  which  we  owe  to  that 
philosophy,  to  what  do  they  amount  f  .  .  .  But 
when  we  look  for  something  more — for  some- 
thing which  adds  to  the  comfort  or  alleviates  the 
calamities  of  the  human  race — we  are  forced  to 
own  ourselves  disappointed." 

No  ;  there  is,  really,  nothing  to  be  said.  If 
the  Learned  Pig  found  voice  and  articulate 
speech  and  expressed  his  scorn  of  the  poet's  art, 
since  it  added  nothing  to  the  pleasures  of  the 
wash-tub,  we  might  wonder  but  we  should  not 
argue  ;  and  it  were  idle  to  contend  with  a 
Laughing  Jackass,  contemptuously  amused  by  the 
chanting  of  the  cathedral  choir. 

And,  perhaps,  you  are  wondering  what  all  this 
talk  of  mine  has  to  do  with  our  main  subject — 
literature  ?  But  don't  you  see  that  all  the  while 
I  have  merely  been  reiterating  our  old  conclu- 
sions in  a  new  phraseology  ?  I  may  have  appeared 
to  you  to  be  the  last  of  the  Cavaliers,  gallantly 
contending  for  the  rights  of  Holy  Church,  but, 
in  reality,  I  have  been  showing,  at  every  step, 
that  Jane  Austen's  works  are  not  literature. 
Yes,  but  it  is  so.  If  the  science  of  life,  if 
philosophy,  consisted  of  a  series  of  mathema- 
tical propositions,  capable  of  rational  demon- 
stration, then  Pride  and  Prejudice  would  be 
the  highest  pinnacle  of  the  literary  art ;  but 
if  not,  if  we,  being  wondrous,  journey  through 


1 70  Hieroglyphics 

a  wonderful  world,  if  all  our  joys  are  from  above, 
from  the  other  world  where  the  Shadowy- 
Companion  walks,  then  no  mere  making  of  the 
likeness  of  the  external  shape  will  be  our  art,  no 
veracious  document  will  be  our  truth  ;  but  to  us, 
initiated,  the  Symbol  will  be  offered,  and  we 
shall  take  the  Sign  and  adore,  beneath  the  out- 
ward and  perhaps  unlovely  accidents,  the  very 
Presence  and  eternal  indwelling  of  God. 

We  have  tracked  Ecstasy  by  many  strange 
paths,  in  divers  strange  disguises,  but  I  think 
that  now,  and  only  now,  we  have  discovered  its 
full  and  perfect  definition.  For  Artifice  is  of 
Time,  but  Art  is  of  Eternity. 


APPENDIX 

POE  was  not  altogether  right  in  saying  that 
the  object  of  poetry  was  Beauty  as 
distinguished  from  Truth.  I  don't  for  a 
moment  suppose  that  his  meaning  was  amiss, 
but  I  hardly  like  his  expression  of  it.  I  should 
contend,  on  the  other  hand,  that  poetry  Kar 
l^oxqv,  and  Uterature,  generally,  are  the  sole 
media  by  which  the  very  highest  truth  can  be 
conveyed.  Poe,  no  doubt,  meant  to  state  a 
proposition  which  is  true  and  self-evident — that 
poetry  has  nothing  to  do  with  scientific  truth, 
or  facts,  or  information  of  any  kind,  and  I  say 
that  that  proposition  is  self-evident,  because  we 
have  already  seen  that  in  Uterature,  facts  as  facts 
have  no  existence  at  all.  They  are  only  "  words  " 
in  the  language  of  literary  art,  and  are  used  as 
symbols  of  something  else.  That  A.  is  in  love 
with  B.  is  a  "  scientific  truth,"  a  fact  ;  but  if  it 
be  not  also  a  symbol,  it  has  no  literary  existence 
whatever ;  and  this  of  course  is  what  Poe 
wished  to  say — literature  is  not  a  matter  of 
information. 

But  I  doubt,  after  all,  whether  Poe  had  quite 

171 


172  Hieroglyphics 

grasped  the  theory  of  literature,  of  all  the  arts. 
You  remember  that  he  says  that  he  yields  to  no 
man  in  his  love  of  the  truth  ;  and  unless  he 
meant  the  highest  truth  the  statement  is  almost 
nonsensical.  No  one,  I  should  imagine,  surely 
not  Poe,  would  express  his  enthusiasm  for  facts 
as  facts,  would  adore  correct  information  in  the 
abstract.  You  remember  what  Rossetti  said — 
that  he  neither  knew  nor  cared  whether  the 
sun  went  round  the  earth  or  the  earth  went 
round  the  sun — and  so  far  as  art  is  concerned, 
this  is,  no  doubt,  the  expression  of  the  true 
faith,  which,  from  what  we  know  of  Poe,  would 
be  his  faith  also.  We  should  therefore  conclude 
that  by  truth  he  meant  philosophical  truth,  the 
highest  truth,  the  essential  truth  as  distinguished 
from  the  accidental,  the  universal  as  distinguished 
from  the  particular.  Yet  in  the  next  breath  he 
contrasts  this  Truth  with  Beauty,  being  clearly 
under  the  impression  that  they  were  two  different 
things.  Of  course  he  was  completely  mistaken. 
In  the  last  analysis  it  is  entirely  true  that 
"  Beauty  is  Truth  and  Truth  Beauty  "  :  they 
are  one  and  the  same  entity  seen  from  different 
points  of  view.  You  will  see  how  this  fits  in 
with  all  we  have  been  saying  about  literature 
lately  :  how  we  can  if  we  please  put  our  test  of 
literature  into  yet  another  phraseology.  For 
instance  :    Vanity    Fair   is    information,    while 


Hieroglyphics  i73 

Pickwick  is  Truth  ;  the  one  tells  you  a  number 
of  facts  about  Becky  Sharp  and  other  people, 
while  the  other  symbohses  certain  eternal  and 
essential  elements  in  human  nature  by  means  of 
incidents.  And,  as  I  said,  it  is  doubtful  whether 
truth  in  this,  its  highest  and  its  real  significance, 
can  be  adequately  expressed  in  any  other  way. 
All  the  profound  verities  which  have  been 
revealed  to  man  have  come  to  him  under  the 
guise  of  myths  and  symbols — such  as  the  myth  of 
Dionysus — and  truth  in  the  form  of  a  mathe- 
matical demonstration  or  a  "  rational  "  state- 
ment is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  Yet  note  the 
profound  vice  of  language  ;  we  are  obliged  to 
use  the  same  word  to  imply  things  which  are 
separated  by  an  immeasurable  gulf.  It  is  "  true  " 
that  Mrs.  Stickings  sent  away  Ethelberta  to-night 
(you  imparted  that  interesting  fact,  and  I  rely 
on  your  testimony),  and  the  Don  Quixote  is 
"  true  "  :  that  is,  it  conveys  to  us  by  means  of 
symbols  the  verities  of  our  own  nature. 

But  Poe  had  not  grasped  the  essential  dis- 
tinction between  literature  and  "  literature." 
He  thought  that  poetry  alone  should  be  beauti- 
ful, or,  as  we  should  say,  ecstatic  ;  he  did  not  see 
that  the  quaUties  which  make  poetry  to  be  what 
it  is  must  also  be  present  in  prose  if  it  is  to  be 
something  more  than  "  reading-matter."  Poetry 
of  course  is  literature  in  its  purest  state  ;  it  is,  as 


1 74  Hieroglyphics 

I  think  I  once  said,  almost  the  soul  without  the 
body  ;  at  its  highest  it  is  almost  pure  art  unmixed 
with  the  alloy  of  artifice.  And  to  carry  on  the 
analysis,  the  finest  form  of  poetry  is  necessarily 
the  lyrical.  Where  you  get  the  element  of 
narrative  you  are  apt  also  to  get  the  element  of 
prose  ;  there  have  to  be  passages  linking  the 
raptures  together,  and  these  will,  probably  or 
indeed  necessarily,  run  on  lower  levels. 

Of  course  primitive  man  had  moods  in  which 
rapture  seemed  to  embrace  everything,  to  invest 
every  detail  of  existence  with  its  own  singular 
and  inexplicable  glory.  A  meal  by  the  seashore, 
the  dry  wood  flaming  and  crackling  on  the  sand, 
the  roasting  goat's  flesh,  the  honey-sweet  wine, 
dark  and  almost  as  glorious  as  the  sea  itself — a 
mere  dinner  of  half -savages,  one  might  think  it, 
but  it  too  seems  to  have  its  solemnity  and  its 
inner  meaning.  I  believe  this  element  in  the 
early  poetry  has  often  been  noticed  ;  people 
have  wondered  at  the  naive  delight  with  which 
the  writers  describe  the  work  of  man's  hands, 
and  they  are,  I  think,  inclined  to  account  for 
it  on  the  ground  that  then  everything  was  new. 
This  might  pass,  perhaps,  since  as  you,  no  doubt, 
perceive,  "  everything  new  "  means  "  everything 
unknown  "  (that  which  is  known  is  no  longer 
new),  but  I  hardly  think  that  the  explanation 
can  stand  in  its  present  form.    I  am  not  at  all 


Hieroglyphics  1 7  5 

up  in  the  theories  which  assign  this  or  that  age 
to  the  appearance  of  man  on  the  earth,  but  I 
presume  that  on  the  gentlest  and  most  antiquated 
computation  man  must  have  long  known  the 
world  before  Homer  wrote  ;  so  one  scarcely  sees 
that  human  skill  and  art,  the  knack  of  making 
things  and  the  gift  of  adorning  them,  could  have 
been  novelties,  or,  in  any  sense,  "  things  un- 
known," I  repeat  I  know  nothing  or  next  to 
nothing  about  these  dates  in  anthropology,  but 
one  has  heard  something  about  the  neolithic  age, 
and  the  palaeolithic  age,  about  the  very  early 
man  who  scratched  the  rude  likeness  of  a  reindeer 
on  the  brute's  own  bone,  and  so  there  hardly 
seems  room  for  this  theory  of  novelty.  And 
besides,  as  we  have  seen,  the  rapture  is  universal 
or  all  but  universal  ;  it  colours  the  whole  of  life, 
including  the  meal  by  the  seashore  ;  and  there, 
we  see,  there  was  no  possibility  of  invention  or 
sense  of  newness.  No  ;  the  theory  is  tempting, 
and  it  would  fall  in  perfectly,  as  I  dare  say  you 
see,  with  all  that  we  have  concluded  about 
literature,  but  I  really  think  that  it  must  be 
definitely  abandoned.  No  ;  it  seems  to  me  that 
primitive  man,  Homeric  man,  mediaeval  man, 
man,  indeed,  almost  to  our  own  day  when  the 
School  Board  (and  other  things)  have  got  hold 
of  him,  had  such  an  unconscious  but  all-pervad- 
ing,   all-influencing   conviction   that   he   was   a 


176  Hieroglyphics 

wonderful  being,  descended  of  a  wonderful 
ancestry,  and  surrounded  by  mysteries  of  all 
kinds,  that  even  the  smallest  details  of  his  life 
partook  of  the  ruling  ecstasy  ;  he  was  so  sure  that 
he  was  miraculous  that  it  seemed  that  no  part 
of  his  life  could  escape  from  the  miracle,  so  that 
to  him  every  meal  became  a  sacrament. 

It  is  the  attitude  of  the  primitive  man,  of  the 
real  man,  of  the  child,  always  and  everywhere  ; 
it  may  be  briefly  summed  up  in  the  phrase  : 
things  are  because  they  are  wonderful.  This,  of 
course,  is  the  atmosphere  in  which  poets  ought 
to  live,  and  in  which  poetry  should  be  produced. 
Formerly  it  was  natural  to  all  men  or  almost  all ; 
now,  perhaps,  it  has  to  be  regained  by  a  conscious 
effort  ;  and  the  difficulty  of  the  effort,  the 
impossibility  of  sustaining  it  for  long,  explain  the 
supremacy  of  lyrical  poetry.  If  you  lived  in  a 
world  that  could  regard  a  common  meal  as  a 
sacrament  you  could  be  supreme  in  narrative 
poetry  ;  but,  that  atmosphere  wanting,  we  have 
to  be  content  for  the  most  part  with  the  lyric, 
with  the  simple  incantation,  without  any 
description  of  the  circumstance  or  occasion. 

Yet  prose,  though  it  yields  in  much  to  the 
world,  must  still  keep  the  same  ideal  before  it  as 
poetry.  I  say,  distinctly,  that  the  only  essential, 
defining  difference  between  the  two  is  to  be 
sought  in  the  "  numbering  "  of  poetry,  in  the 


Hieroglyphics  177 

fact  that  art,  in  its  intensest  raptures,  in  its  most 
truly  "  natural  "  moment,  desires  and  obtains 
the  strictest  and  most  formal  laws.  It  is, 
I  suppose,  immaterial  what  these  laws  are, 
rhyme,  assonance,  accents,  feet,  alliteration, 
all  testify  to  the  important  and  essential  rule 
that  freedom  is  chiefly  free  when  it  is  most 
bound  and  bounded  by  restrictions  which  we 
should  call  artificial,  which  are,  in  truth,  in  the 
highest  sense,  natural.  And  this,  I  am  sure,  is  the 
only  possible  distinction  that  can  be  established 
between  such  a  book  as  the  Odyssey  and  such  a 
book  as  the  Morte  d'' Arthur.  Neither  is  "  pro- 
saic "  in  the  common  sense  of  the  word  ;  each 
is  "  poetical  "  ;  but  the  Greek  book  is  poetry 
because  it  is  numbered,  and  the  English  is  prose 
because  it  lacks  number.  Of  course  there  are 
difficult  cases ;  hybrids,  as  there  always  are, 
whatever  laws  one  may  lay  down. 


That  word  "  natural  "  is  another  of  the  many 
traps  that  language  sets  us.  I  think  that  its  real 
meaning  has  become  almost  reversed.  Take  the 
average  man  to  church  and  ask  him  his  opinion 
of  the  "  intoning,"  and  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten 
he  will  say  that  it  may  be  pretty,  but  that  it  is 
very    unnatural.      He    means,    of    course,    that 

M 


1 7  8  Hieroglyphics 

speaking  is  natural,  and  that  singing —  "  numer- 
osity  "  of  tone — is  not  natural,  is,  in  a  word, 
artificial.     He  is  utterly  wrong.     It  is  artificial 
to  speak   in   the    ordinary    manner,    while    the 
priests'    chant,    and    every    chant,    are    purely 
natural.    For  the  proof  of  this  you  have  only  to 
read  a  Httle — a  very  Httle — about  primitive  or 
"  natural  "  peoples,  or,  more  simply,  to  listen  to 
children   at   play.     You  will  always   find  that 
where  convention  has  not  cast  out  nature,  some 
kind  of  "  sing-song,"  some  sort  of  chant  is  the 
entirely  natural  utterance  of  man  in  his  most 
fervent,    that    is,    his    most    natural   moments. 
Listen  to  half  a  dozen  children  (children,  you 
must    remember,    are    all    "  primitives "    and 
therefore  natural)  playing  some  game,  learning 
their  lesson  at  school.     Their  voices  are  pretty 
sure  to  fall  into  a  very  rude,  but  a  distinctly 
measured,     chant.       The     Greek     drama     was 
intoned,    the    Koran    is    intoned,    the    Welsh 
preacher  of  to-day  at  the  impassioned  height  of 
eloquence  begins  to  chant,  the  Persian  passion- 
plays  are  recited  in  a  sing-song.    Nay,  but  think 
of  one  of  our  great  tragic  actors.    Quite  uncon- 
sciously, I  am  sure,  Irving  elaborated  for  himself 
a  distinctly  musical  and  measured  utterance,  so 
that  a  skilful  musician,   provided  with  scored 
paper,  could  have  noted  his  delivery  of  many 
passages,   as   if  it  were   music.     The   Chinese 


Hieroglyphics  179 

language,  I  am  told,  depends  largely  on  the 
tonal  variations  which  distinguish  the  meaning 
of  one  word  from  that  of  another  ;  you  will  find 
the  same  thing  in  the  Norwegian  ;  and  the 
Jewash  "  cantillation,"  which  is  "  sing-song  " 
in  a  very  simple  form,  bears  witness  to  the  truth 
— that  "  speaking  "  is  acquired,  conventional, 
and  artificial,  while  "  singing  "  is  natural.  All 
this  would  be  perfectly  clear  in  itself,  would 
require  no  demonstration  of  any  kind,  if  it  were 
not  for  the  fact  that  we  have,  somehow  or 
other,  got  into  the  way  of  making  the  very 
impudent  assumption  that  man  is  only  natural 
when  he  is  doing  business  on  the  Stock  Exchange 
or  reading  leading-articles.  It  seems  almost  too 
nonsensical  an  assumption  to  put  into  words, 
but  I  really  do  believe  that  "  at  the  back  of  our 
heads  "  there  is  a  sort  of  vague,  floating  idea 
that  there  never  were  any  real  men  at  all  till  the 
period  of  the  first  Reform  Bill,  and  I  suppose 
that  before  very  long  Lord  John  Russell  will  be 
pushed  back  into  the  region  of  myth,  and  the 
foundation  of  the  School  Board  will  be  the  era  of 
true  humanity.  I  say,  this  sounds  too  ridiculous, 
but  examine  yourself  and  see  whether  you  don't 
dimly  believe  that  before  the  advent  of  trousers 
the  whole  world  was  really  "  play-acting,"  that 
existence  in  the  days  of  laced  coats  was,  in  a 
way,  a  kind  of  phantasmagoria,  and  that  a  man 


1 8o  Hieroglyphics 

who  wore  chain-mail  was  hardly  a  man.    I  believe 
it  really  is  so,  and  you  will  find  the  same  non- 
sense influencing  religious  opinion.    Take  your 
average  Protestant,   and    I  am  much  mistaken 
i£  you    do  not  discover  that  he  believes  some 
grotesque   preacher,    in   his   greasy   black   suit, 
mouthing  platitudes   at  his  conventicle,  to   be 
somehow  more  "  natural  "  than  the  priest,  clad 
in   the   mystical   robes   of  his   office,   chanting 
Mass  at  the  altar.    But  in  literature — why  this 
perversion  o£  the  word  influences  the  whole  of 
criticism.    Jane  Austen,  we  say,  is  natural,  and 
Edgar  Allan  Poe  is  unnatural,  or,  as  it  is  some- 
times expressed,  inhuman.     Of  course,  if  you 
wish  for  the  truth,   the  proposition  must  be 
reversed,  unless  you  are  willing  to  believe  that 
a     company    prospectus     is,    somehow,    more 
natural  and  more  human  than,  say,  Tennyson's 
Fatima.     If  you  think  that  the  real  man  is  the 
stomach,   there   is,   of   course,   an   end  of  the 
discussion  ;    but  then  we  should  have  to  admit 
that  all  the  greatest  artists  of  the  world  were 
maniacs.     But  you  see  clearly,  don't  you  ?  that 
all  these  questions  as  to  what  we  shall  get  for 
dinner,  and  whom  shall  we  meet  at  dinner,  and 
in  what  order  shall  we  go  in  to  dinner,  and  how 
shall  we  behave  at  dinner,  are  in  no  sense  natural, 
since  they  are  all  so  purely  temporary,  since  they 
will  be  answered  by  one  age  in  a  manner  that  will 


Hieroglyphics  1 8 1 

seem  wholly  "unnatural"  to  the  next.  That,  I 
think,  is  truly  natural  which  is  unchanging, 
which  belongs  to  men  always,  at  all  times,  and  in 
all  ages.  In  this  sense  ecstasy  is  natural  to  man, 
and  it  finds  expression  in  the  arts,  in  poetry,  in 
romance,  in  singing,  in  melody,  in  dancing,  in 
painting,  in  architecture.  Many  animals  have 
sufficient  artifice  to  shelter  themselves  from  the 
weather,  no  animal  has  architecture,  or  the  art 
of  beauty  in  building  ;  many  animals,  or  all 
animals,  have  the  faculty  of  communicating 
with  one  another  by  means  of  signs,  but  man 
alone  has  the  art  of  language. 


Has  it  ever  struck  you  while  I  have  been 
talking  of  ecstasy  in  books,  that  it  is  nearly 
always  a  question  of  degree,  of  more  or  less  ?  I 
think  I  indicated  as  much  while  I  was  talking 
about  Pickwick  ;  I  showed  how  the  ecstatic 
conception  had  been  alloyed  with  much  baser 
matter,  in  other  words  that  there  was  much  in 
Pickwick  that  was  by  no  means  literature.  And, 
I  dare  say,  though  I  am  not  sure,  that  if  you 
were  to  go  through  your  Meredith  you  might 
succeed  in  finding  some  passages  and  sentences 
which  are  literature,  and  for  all  I  know  there 
may  be  hints  of  rapture  between  the  lines  of 


1 8  2  Hieroglyphics 

Pride  and.  Prejudice.    Still,  we  do  not  call  a  man 
poet  on  the  strength  of  a  single  line. 

But  sometimes  one  is  confronted  with  books 
which  are  really  very  difficult  to  judge,  and 
this  sometimes  happens  because  the  ecstasy, 
the  true  literary  feeling,  supposing  it  to  be 
present,  is  present  not  here  or  there,  not 
in  a  phrase  or  in  a  particular  passage,  but 
throughout,  in  a  very  weak  solution,  if  one 
may  borrow  the  phraseology  of  physical  science. 
We  read  such  books,  and  are  puzzled,  feel- 
ing that,  somehow,  they  are  literature,  only 
we  can't  say  why,  since  on  the  face  of  it  they 
seem  only  to  be  entertaining  reading.  Do  you 
know  that  I  can  conceive  many  people  who 
would  find  something  of  this  difficulty  in  Mark 
Twain's  Huckleberry  Finn  ?  Here  you  have  a 
tale  of  the  rude  America  of  fifty  or  sixty  years 
ago,  of  a  Mississippi  village,  full  of  the  most 
ordinary  people,  of  a  boy  and  a  negro  who 
"  run  away."  I  don't  think  anyone  with  the 
slightest  perception  of  literature  could  read  it 
without  experiencing  extraordinary  delight,  but 
I  can  imagine  many  people  would  be  a  good  deal 
puzzled  to  justify  the  pleasure  they  had  received. 
The  "  stuff  "  of  the  book  is  so  very  common  and 
commonplace,  isn't  it  ?  it  seems  so  frankly  a 
rough  bit  of  recollection  drawn  up  from  the 
author's  boyish  days  with  jottings  added  from 


Hieroglyphics  183 

the  time  when  he  was  a  pilot  on  one  of  the 
river-boats — it  is  all  so  apparently  devoid  of 
"  literary "  feehng  that  I  am  sure  many  a 
reader  must  have  felt  greatly  ashamed  of  his 
huge  enjoyment.  To  me  Huckleberry  Finn  is 
not  a  very  difficult  case.  That  flight  by  night 
down  the  great  unknown,  rolling  river,  between 
the  dim  marshy  lands  and  the  high  "  bluffs  "  of 
the  other  shore,  comes  in  my  mind  well  under 
the  great  Odyssey  class ;  it  has,  indeed,  the 
old,  unquenchable  joy  of  wandering  into  the 
unknown  in  a  more  acute  degree  than  Pickwick^ 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  to  be  reckoned  under  the 
same  heading.  In  a  word  it  is  pure  romance,  and 
you  will  note  that  the  story  is  told  by  a  boy,  and 
that  by  this  method  a  larger  element  of  wonder 
is  secured,  for  even  in  this  absurd  age  children 
are  allowed  to  be  amazed  at  the  spectacle  of  the 
world.  In  the  mouth  of  a  man  the  tale  would 
necessarily  have  lost  somewhat  of  its  "  strange- 
ness," since  partly  from  affectation,  partly 
from  vicious  training,  partly  from  the  absorp- 
tion of  the  "  getting-on  "  process,  grown-up 
people  have  largely  succeeded  in  quenching  the 
sense  of  mystery  which  should  be  their  principal 
delight.  You  have  only  to  read  the  average 
book  of  travels  to  see  how  this  affectation  (or 
perversion  of  the  soul)  has  deprived  the  seeing 
being  of  his  sight.    Dip  into  a  book — say  a  book 


184  Hieroglyphics 

on  China — and  you  will  probably  find  that 
Pekin  streets  are  dusty  in  summer  and  muddy  in 
winter,  and  that  the  author  caught  cold  through 
imprudent  bathing.  So  it  is  well  for  us  that 
Mark  Twain  put  his  story  in  the  mouth  o£  an 
"  infant,"  who  is  frankly  at  liberty  to  express 
his  sense  of  the  marvels  of  the  world.  Later, 
there  is  an  introduction  of  the  "  literary " 
feeling  ;  those  chapters  about  Jim's  "  Evasion  " 
are  very  Cervantic  in  their  artifice  and  method, 
but,  to  my  thinking,  they  have  lost  the  spirit, 
though  they  preserve  the  body.  They  are  most 
amusing  reading,  but  they  are  burlesque  and 
nothing  more  than  burlesque  ;  and  from  them 
one  can  almost  imagine  what  Don  Quixote  would 
have  been  if  it  had  been  written  by  a  very  clever 
man,  by  an  artificer  who  was  not  an  artist.  But 
the  earlier  chapters  are  wonderfully  fine,  and  I 
think  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more 
successful  rendering  of  the  old  "  wandering  " 
theme  with  modern  language. 


But  there  is  another  writer  who  is  much  more 
difficult  to  account  for — I  mean  Miss  Wilkins. 
I  confess  I  find  her  tales  delightful,  and  I  often 
read  them,  but  as  you  know  I  am  not  content 
to  rest  on  my  own  pleasure  in  literary  criticism. 


Hieroglyphics  185 

We  are  no  longer  talking  of  the  great  master- 
pieces, of  the  gigantic  achievements  of  such 
men  as  Homer,  Sophocles,  Rabelais,  Cervantes  ; 
we  agreed  that  when  we  spoke  of  these  great, 
enduring  miracles  of  art,  it  was  best  to  lay  aside 
all  question  of  liking  or  not  liking,  of  reading 
often  or  reading  seldom.  But  when  one  comes 
to  modern  days,  to  books  which  have  yet  to  prove 
their  merit  by  the  test  of  their  endurance,  it  is 
pardonable  if  one  is  sometimes  a  little  confused, 
if  one  fails  to  discriminate  at  once  between  the 
merely  interesting  and  the  really  artistic.  I  may 
be  so  delighted  with  a  book  for  reasons  that  have 
nothing  to  do  with  art,  that,  by  an  unconscious 
trick  of  the  mind,  I  persuade  myself  that  I  am 
reading  literature  while  there  is  only  reading- 
matter.  And  at  one  time  I  was  inclined  to  think 
that  I  had  "  confused  "  Miss  Wilkins  in  this 
manner.  For,  on  the  surface,  you  have  in  her 
books  merely  village  tales  of  New  Englanders, 
tales  often  sentimental,  often  trivial  enough, 
and  sometimes,  it  would  seem,  of  scarcely  more 
than  local  interest.  Hardly  can  one  conceive 
the  possibility  of  any  ecstasy  in  these  pleasant 
stories  ;  for  they  deal,  ostentatiously,  with  the 
surface  of  things,  with  a  breed  of  Englishmen 
whose  chief  pride  it  was  to  hide  away  and 
smother  all  those  passions  and  emotions  which  are 
the  peculiar  mark  of  man  as  man. 


1 86  Hieroglyphics 

Yet,  I  believe  that  I  can  justify  my  love  o£ 
Miss  Wilkins's  w^ork  on  a  higher  ground  than 
that  of  mere  liking.  In  the  first  place  I  agree 
with  Mr,  T.  P.  O'Connor,  w^ho  pointed  out  very 
well  that  the  passion  does  come  through  the 
reserve,  and  occasionally  in  the  most  volcanic 
manner.  He  selects  a  scene  from  Pembroke,  in 
which  the  young  people  play  at  some  dancing 
game  called  Copenhagen,  and  Mr.  O'Connor 
shows  that  though  the  boys  and  girls  of  Pem- 
broke knew  nothing  of  it,  they  were  really 
animated  by  the  spirit  of  the  Bacchanals,  that 
the  fire  and  glow  of  passion  of  the  youthful 
ecstasy  burst  through  all  the  hard  crusts 
of  Calvinism  and  New  England  reserve.  And 
we  have  agreed  that  if  a  writer  can  make  passion 
for  us,  if  he  can  create  the  image  of  the  eternal 
human  ecstasy,  we  have  agreed  that  in  such  a 
case  the  writer  is  an  artist. 

But  I  think  that  there  are  other  things,  more 
subtle,  more  delicately  hinted  things  in  Miss 
Wilkins's  tales ;  or  rather  I  should  say  that  they 
are  all  pervaded  and  filled  with  an  emotion 
which  I  can  hardly  think  that  the  writer  has  re- 
alised. Well  I  find  it  difficult  to  express  exactly 
what  I  mean,  but  I  think  that  the  whole  impres- 
sion which  one  receives  from  these  tales  is  one  of 
loneliness,  of  isolation.  Compare  Miss  Wilkins 
with  Jane  Austen,  the  New  England  stories  with 


Hieroglyphics  187 

Pride  and  Prejudice.  You  might  imagine,  at 
first,  that  in  one  case  as  in  the  other  there  is  a 
sense  of  retirement,  of  separation  from  the 
world,  that  Miss  Austen's  heroines  are  as  remote 
from  the  great  streams  and  whirlpools  of  life  as 
any  Jane  Field  or  Charlotte  of  Massachusetts, 
But  in  reality  this  is  not  so.  The  people  in  the 
English  novels  are  in  no  sense  remote  ;  they  are 
merely  dull ;  they  cannot  be  remote,  indeed, 
since  they  are  not  human  beings  at  all  but 
merely  the  representatives  of  certain  superficial 
manners  and  tricks  of  manner  which  were 
common  in  the  rural  England  of  a  hundred  years 
ago.  "  Remoteness  "  is  an  affection  of  the  soul, 
and  wicker-figures,  dressed  up  in  the  clothes 
of  a  period,  cannot  have  any  such  affections 
predicated  of  them  ;  and  consequently  though 
Emma  or  Elizabeth  may  appear  very  quaint  to 
us  from  the  contrast  between  the  manners  of  this 
centurv  and  the  last,  thev  cannot  be  remote. 
But  that  does  seem  to  me  the  quality  of  those 
books  of  Miss  Wilkins's ;  the  people  appear  to 
be  very  far  off  from  the  world,  to  live  in  an 
isolated  sphere,  and  each  one  lives  his  own  life, 
and  dwells  apart  with  his  own  soul,  and  in  spite  of 
all  the  trivial  chatter  and  circumstance  of  the 
village  one  feels  that  each  is  a  human  being  moved 
by  eminently  human  affections. 


1 8  8  Hieroglyphics 

It  seems  to  me  that  one  of  the  most  important 
functions  of  literature  is  to  seize  the  really  fine 
flavours  of  life  and  to  preserve  them,  as  it  were, 
in  permanent  form.  When  we  were  talking 
about  Huckleberry  Finn,  for  example,  I  remem- 
ber that  I  spoke  of  it  as  the  story  of  a  boy  who 
"  runs  away."  But  what  a  curious  magic  there  is 
in  these  words  "  runs  away."  Doesn't  it,  when 
you  come  to  examine  the  phrase,  exhale  the  very 
essence  and  spirit  of  romance  ?  Some  time  ago 
I  reminded  you  that  the  essential  thing  is 
concealed  under  all  manner  of  grotesque  and 
unseemly  forms,  that  one  can  detect  a  veritable 
human  passion  under  the  cry  of  the  newsboy, 
shouting,  "  All  the  winners !  "  So  I  think  that 
phrase,  "  run  away,"  carries  to  us  its  meaning 
and  significance.  For,  after  all,  what  did  all  the 
heroes  of  romance  do  but  "  run  away  "  ?  They 
left  the  region  of  the  known,  the  famiUar  fields 
or  the  famihar  shores,  and  adventured  out  in  the 
great  waste  of  the  unexplored,  into  the  forest  or 
upon  the  sea.  Here,  perhaps,  you  have  the  true 
interpretation  of  the  phrase  "  divine  discontent," 
for  surely  only  that  is  divine  which  revolts  from 
the  commonness  of  the  common  life,  which  is 
conscious  of  things  beyond,  of  better  things,  of 
a  world  which  transcends  all  daily  experience.  I 
said  once,  I  think,  that  the  English  passion  for 
trading  goes  very  well  with  the  supremacy  of 


Hieroglyphics  189 

English  poetry,  since  poetry  and  shop-keeping 
are  but  different  expressions  of  the  one  idea  ; 
and  here  again  you  find  confirmation  of  the 
theory  in  that  very  marked  EngUsh  characteristic 
— the  desire  of  wandering,  of  "  going  on  and  on  " 
in  the  manner  of  a  knight -errant  or  a  fairy  tale 
hero.  Of  course,  in  practice,  this  really  divine 
impulse  is  corrupted  by  all  kinds  of  earthly, 
secondary  motions ;  and  just  as  the  love  of  a 
venture  which  is  at  the  root  of  trade  often  or 
always  ends  in  a  very  vulgar  wish  to  make  money 
and  more  money  and  to  set  up  a  brougham  and 
confound  the  Smiths,  so  the  great  joy  of  explora- 
tion, of  running  away  from  the  mapped  and 
charted  land,  has  for  its  issues  the  "development 
of  markets,"  the  "  progress  of  civilisation,"  the 
profitable  sale  of  poison,  and  all  manner  of  base 
and  blackguardly  manoeuvres.  But,  of  course, 
one  expects  all  this  ;  it  is  the  inevitable  mixture 
of  the  lower  with  the  higher  which  characterises 
all  our  human  ways.  Still,  the  higher  motive 
dwells  within  us — I  suspect,  indeed,  that  if  it 
were  not  for  the  higher  the  lower  could  hardly 
flourish — and  so  when  you  hear  that  a  boy  has 
run  away  to  sea  or  elsewhere  I  wish  you  to  think 
kindly  of  him  as  a  survival  of  the  most  primitive 
and  important  human  passions.  Yes,  I  think  I 
am  right  in  saying  that  the  lower  things  of 
humanity  only  flourish  in  consequence  of  the 


1 90  Hieroglyphics 

existence  of  the  higher.  Take  the  French  nation, 
for  example.  It  is  infinitely  more  bent  on  gain 
for  the  mere  sake  of  gain  than  the  English  ;  it 
is  ready  to  work  harder,  to  give  more  time,  to 
live  more  unpleasantly,  to  eat  less  and  to  drink 
less  than  the  English  ;  and  all  in  the  pursuit  of 
money.  Rationally,  in  short,  the  French  should 
be  infinitely  better  men  of  business  than  the 
English  ;  and  yet  we  know  that  this  is  not  so, 
that  the  English  is,  par  excellence,  the  business 
nation.  Seriously,  I  believe  that  this  is  so 
because  the  French  are  money-grubbers  and 
nothing  more,  because  they  hate  a  "  risk  "  of 
any  kind,  because  they  abhor  any  kind  of 
mercantile  venturing  into  the  unknown.  In 
other  words,  they  engage  in  money-making 
simply  for  the  sake  of  making  money  :  they  have 
no  joy  of  the  hazard,  they  will  never  deserve  the 
title  of  "  merchant  adventurers,"  and,  there- 
fore, they  remain  in  truth  a  nation  of  shop- 
keepers, and  of  second-rate  shop-keepers.  Sir,  a 
man  of  acute  intelligence  would,  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  have  deduced  the  future  state  of 
French  and  English  commerce,  of  French  and 
English  colonisation  from  a  comparison  between 
Shakespeare  and  Racine.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
the  Phoenicians  were  shop-keepers  of  the  French 
kind,  and  hence  their  extinction,  their  shadowy 
survival  merely  in  the  history  of  their  conquerors. 


Hieroglyphics  1 9 1 

You  think  the  Roman  Empire  a  formidable 
objection  to  my  theory,  because  Roman  Htera- 
ture  and  Roman  art  show,  in  general,  so  little  of 
the  imaginative,  adventurous  faculty  ?  I  think 
the  objection  is  formidable,  but  I  believe  that 
it  can  be  redargued,  as  Dominie  Sampson  used 
to  say.  The  Roman  Empire  was  such  a  purely 
military  settlement,  wasn't  it  ?  it  was,  if  one 
may  say  so,  a  garrisoning  of  the  world,  not  in  any 
way  a  real  colonising  in  the  Greek  and  the 
EngHsh  sense.  And  in  the  second  place,  do  you 
know  that  I  have  grave  doubts  whether  we  know 
very  much  of  the  Roman  spirit  from  the  Roman 
literature  ?  How  far  into  the  English  character 
would  the  works  of  the  excellent  Dr.  Johnson 
carry  us  ?  One  hardly  finds  Chaucer,  the 
Elizabethans,  the  Cavalier  poets,  Keats  or 
Wordsworth  in  Rasselas  and  The  Rambler,  and 
I  have  always  suspected  that  Latin  literature 
was  in  a  great  measure  "  Johnsonised,"  peri- 
wigged, hidden  and  perverted  by  the  irresistible 
flood  of  Greek  culture.  It  may  be  a  paradox, 
but  I  have  a  very  strong  conviction  that  the 
Missal  and  the  Breviary  tell  us  more  about  the 
true  Latin  character  than  Cicero  and  Horace, 
But  we  must  be  thankful  that  in  the  sixteenth 
and  early  seventeenth  centuries  England  stood 
aloof  from  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  that 
when  it  did  borrow  it  transformed  and  trans- 


192  Hieroglyphics 

muted  so  that  the  original  entirely  lost  its 
foreign  character.  I  always  think  that  change 
of  Madame  de  Querouaille  into  Madam  Carewell 
such  a  wonderful  instance  of  our  nationalism — 
our  transforming  force  !  If  it  had  been  other- 
wise, if  we  had  grovelled  before  the  literature  of 
France  or  Spain  or  Italy,  as  Rome  grovelled 
before  the  literature  of  Greece — well,  perhaps, 
English  literature  would  have  meant  Chevy 
Chace  and  a  few  old  ballads,  and  the  eighteenth 
century  !  I  hate  the  Reformation,  but  perhaps 
it  saved  our  literature,  simply  by  isolating  the 
nation. 


I  claimed,  I  think,  literary  merit  for  Miss 
Wilkins  because  her  books  give  out  an  impression 
of  loneliness.  I  think  that  is  so,  but  I  should 
like  to  point  out  that  "  loneliness  "  is  merely 
another  synonym  for  that  one  property  which 
makes  the  difference  between  real  literature 
and  reading-matter.  If  you  look  into  the  French 
literature  of  the  last  two  hundred  years  and 
complain  of  its  elegant  nothingness,  of  its  wholly 
secondary  character,  I  would  point  out  that  it  is 
second-rate  because  it  is  the  expression,  not  of 
the  lonely  human  soul,  like  a  star,  dwelling 
apart,  but  of  society,  of  the  ruelles,  of  the  salon, 
of  polite  company,  of  the  cafe  and  the  boulevard. 


Hieroglyphics  193 

I  am  not  making  an  accusation,  I  am  adopting 
the  terms  of  the  eminent  M.  de  Brunetiere, 
who  tells  us,  I  think,  that  French  literature  is 
beautiful  because  it  is  firstly  sociable,  and 
secondly  because  it  is  a  kind  of  a  long  "  talk  to 
ladies."  I  hardly  think  that  I  need  go  into  the 
merits  of  the  question  ;  you  and  I,  I  take  it,  are 
convinced  of  the  vast  immeasurable  inferiority 
of  Racine  to  Shakespeare  (with  these  two  names 
one  sums  up  the  whole  debate),  but  I  am  quite 
sure  that  M.  de  Brunetiere  has  given  the  true 
reason  of  the  French  literature  being  on  the 
distinctly  low  level.  It  is  always  Thackeray, 
it  is  always  Pope,  it  is  always  Jane  Austen  ;  it  is, 
in  our  sense  of  the  word,  not  literature  at  all, 
though,  to  be  sure,  its  artifice  is  often  of  the 
most  exquisite  description.  Of  course  I  do  not 
speak  of  the  ultimate  reason — that  is  to  be 
sought,  I  presume,  in  the  mental  constitution 
of  the  nation — but  when  one  reads  M.  de 
Brunetiere's  account  of  the  formation  of 
modern  French  letters,  and  notes  his  insistence 
on  the  social  element  as  the  chief  factor,  one 
may  be  pretty  sure  that  this  social  factor  is 
responsible  for  the  pleasant  nullities  which  we 
all  know.  You  may  feel  pretty  certain,  I  think, 
that  real  literature  has  always  been  produced  by 
men  who  have  preserved  a  certain  loneliness  of 
soul,  if  not  of  body  ;    the  masterpieces  are  not 

N 


1 94  Hieroglyphics 

generated  by  that  pleasant  and  witty  traffic  of 
the  drawing-rooms,  but  by  the  silence  of  the 
eternal  hills.  Remember ;  we  have  settled 
that  literature  is  the  expression  of  the  "  standing 
out,"  of  the  withdrawal  of  the  soul ;  it  is  the 
endeavour  of  every  age  to  return  to  the  first  age, 
to  an  age,  if  you  like,  of  savages,  when  a  man 
crept  away  to  the  rocks  or  to  the  forests  that  he 
might  utter,  all  alone,  the  secrets  of  his  own 
soul. 

So  this  is  my  plea  for  Miss  Wilkins.  I  think 
that  she  has  indicated  this  condition  of 
"  ecstasis  "  ;  she  has  painted  a  society,  indeed, 
but  a  society  in  which  each  man  stands  apart, 
responsible  only  for  himself  and  to  himself, 
conscious  only  of  himself  and  his  God.  You 
will  note  this,  if  you  read  her  carefully,  you  will 
see  how  this  doctrine  of  awful,  individual 
loneliness  prevails  so  far  that  it  is  carried  into 
the  necessary  and  ordinary  transactions  of  social 
life,  often  with  results  that  are  very  absurd. 
Many  of  the  people  in  her  stories  are  so  abso- 
lutely convinced  of  their  "  loneliness,"  so  certain 
that  there  are  only  two  persons  in  the  whole 
universe — each  man  and  his  God — that  they 
do  not  shrink  from  transgressing  and  flouting 
all  the  social  orders  and  regulations,  in  spite  of 
their  very  strong  and  social  instinct  drawing  them 
in  the  opposite  direction.     You  remember  the 


Hieroglyphics  195 

man  who  vowed  that  under  certain  circum- 
stances he  would  sit  on  the  meeting-house  steps 
every  Sunday  ?  He  kept  his  vow — for  ten  years, 
I  think — and  he  kept  it  in  spite  of  his  profound 
horror  of  ridicule,  of  doing  what  other  people 
didn't  do,  in  spite  of  his  own  happiness  ;  but  he 
kept  it  because  he  realised  his  "  loneliness," 
because  he  saw  quite  clearly  that  he  must  stand 
or  fall  by  his  own  word  and  his  own  promise,  and 
that  the  opinions  of  others  could  be  of  no 
possible  importance  to  him.  The  instance  is 
ludicrous,  even  to  the  verge  of  farce,  and  yet  I 
call  it  a  witness  to  the  everlasting  truth  that, 
at  last,  each  man  must  stand  or  fall  alone,  and 
that  if  he  would  stand,  he  must,  to  a  certain 
extent,  live  alone  with  his  own  soul.  It  is  from 
this  mood  of  lonely  reverie  and  ecstasy  that 
literature  proceeds,  and  I  think  that  the  sense  of 
all  this  is  diffused  throughout  Miss  Wilkins's  New 
England  stories. 

You  ask  me  for  a  new  test — or  rather  for  a 
new  expression  of  the  one  test — that  separates 
literature  from  the  mass  of  stuff  which  is  not 
literature.  I  will  give  you  a  test  that  will 
startle  you  ;  literature  is  the  expression,  through 
the  aesthetic  medium  of  words,  of  the  dogmas 
of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  that  which  in  any 


^     i 


196  Hieroglyphics 

way  is  out  of  harmony  with  these  dogmas  is  not 
literature.  Yes,  it  is  really  so  ;  but  not  exactly 
in  the  sense  which  you  suppose.  No  literal 
compliance  with  Christianity  is  needed,  no,  nor 
even  an  acquaintance  with  the  doctrines  o£ 
Christianity.  The  Greeks,  celebrating  the 
festivals  of  Dionysus,  Cervantes  recounting  the 
fooleries  of  Don  Quixote,  Dickens  measuring 
Mr.  Pickwick's  glasses  of  cold  punch,  Rabelais 
with  his  thirsty  Pantagruel  were  all  sufficiently 
Catholic  from  our  point  of  view,  and  the  cultus 
of  Aphrodite  is  merely  a  symbol  misunderstood 
and  possibly  corrupted ;  and  if  you  can  describe 
an  initiatory  dance  of  savages  in  the  proper 
manner,  I  shall  call  you  a  good  Catholic.  You 
say  that  Robert  Elsmere  is  not  literature,  and 
you  are  perfectly  right,  but  I  hope  you  don't 
condemn  it  because  it  contains  arguments 
directed  against  the  Catholic  Faith  ?  These, 
from  our  own  standpoint,  are  simply  nothing  at 
all,  not  reckoning  either  way.  We  pass  them 
over,  just  as  we  should  pass  over  a  passage  on 
quadratic  equations  pleasantly  interpolated  by 
an  author  into  the  body  of  his  romance.  The 
conscious  opinions  of  a  writer  are  simply  not 
worth  twopence  in  the  court  of  literature  ;  who 
cares  to  enquire  into  the  theology  of  Keats  ? 
But  when  we  find  not  only  the  consciousness  but 
also    the    subconsciousness    permeated    by    the 


Hieroglyphics  i97 

impression  that  man  is  a  logical,  "  rationalistic  " 
creature    and    nothing    more,    when    the    total 
impression  of  the  human  being  gathered  from 
the    book    is    of    a    simplv    demonstrating    and 
demonstrable   animal ;    then   we   may   be  per- 
fectly assured  that  we  have  not  to  deal  with 
literature.    It  is  the  subconsciousness,  remember, 
alone  that  matters  ;    and  (to  put  it  again  theo- 
logically) you  will  find  that  books  which  are  not 
literature     proceed     from     ignorance     of     the 
Sacramental   System.     Thackeray   was   an   un- 
conscious   heretic,    while    George    Ehot    was    a 
conscious  one,   but   each  was  ignorant   of  the 
meaning    of    SacramentaHsm,    and    so,    making 
allowance  for  the  fact  that  the  one  was  a  clever 
man,  wliile  the  other  was  a  dull,  industrious 
woman,  you  have  from  each  a  view  of  life  that  is 
substantially  the  same,  and  entirely  false.    Each 
was  profoundly  convinced  that  theie  are  mile- 
stones on  the   Dover   Road,   and   each,  in  his 
several  way,  was  so  intent  on  the  truth  of  this 
proposition  (and  it  is  a  perfectly  true  one)  that 
the   secret   of   the   scenery   and   the   secret    of 
Canterbury  Cathedral  are  altogether  to  seek  in 
their    books.      Certainly    the    gentleman    is    a 
delightful  companion,  and  the  milestones  seem 
few  indeed  while  we  are  on  the  way,  while  with 
the  other  guide  we  feel  like  a  girls'  school,  com- 
pelled to  listen  to  the  "  Now,  young  ladies  "  and 


1 9  8  Hieroglyphics 

the  "  lessons  "  which  every  object  on  the  road 
suggests.  Still,  the  total  view  is  much  the  same, 
the  same  in  genus  if  not  in  species,  and  you  may 
add  Flaubert  to  your  companions  on  the  road 
and  you  will  be  in  the  same  case.  But  read  a 
chapter  of  Don  Quixote  ;  you  will  not  be  aware 
of  the  existence  of  the  milestones,  since  your 
gaze  is  fixed  on  the  mystery  of  the  woods,  and 
you  are  a  pilgrim  to  the  blissful  shrine  beyond. 
Don't  imagine  that  you  can  improve  your 
literary  chances  by  subscribing  the  Catechism 
or  the  Decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent.  No  ; 
I  can  give  you  no  such  short  and  easy  plan  for 
excelling  ;  but  I  tell  you  that  unless  you  have 
assimilated  the  final  dogmas — the  eternal  truths 
upon  which  those  things  rest,  consciously  if  you 
please,  but  subconsciously  of  necessity,  you  can 
never  write  literature,  however  clever  and 
amusing  you  may  be.  Think  of  it,  and  you  will 
see  that  from  the  literary  standpoint.  Catholic 
dogma  is  merely  the  witness,  under  a  special 
symbolism,  of  the  enduring  facts  of  human 
nature  and  the  universe  ;  it  is  merely  the  voice 
which  tells  us  distinctly  that  man  is  not  the 
creature  of  the  drawing-room  and  the  Stock 
Exchange,  but  a  lonely  awful  soul  confronted 
by  the  Source  of  all  Souls,  and  you  will  realise 
that  to  make  literature  it  is  necessary  to  be,  at  all 
events  subconsciously,  CathoHc. 


Hieroglyphics  1 9  9 

Have  you  noticed  how  many  of  the  greatest 
writers,  so  far  from  desiring  that  compHment  of 
"  fidelity  to  Ufe,"     do  their  best  to  get  away 
from    Ufe,    to   make   their   books,    in    ordinary 
phraseology,  "  unreal."    I  do  not  know  whether 
anybody    has    compared    the    facts    before    or 
made  the  only  possible  inference  from  them  ; 
but  you  remember  how  Rabelais  professes  to 
derive  his  book  from  a  little  mouldy  manuscript, 
found  in  a  tomb,  how  Cervantes,  beginning  in 
propria    persona    authoris,    breaks    off   and    dis- 
covers the  true  history  of  Don  Quixote  in  the 
Arabic   Manuscript   of   Cid   Hamet   Benengeh, 
how   Hawthorne   prologises   with   the   custom- 
house at  Salem,  and  lights,  in  an  old  lumber- 
room,  on  the  documents  telling  him  the  history 
of  the  Scarlet  Letter.    Pickwick  was  a  transcript 
of    the  "  Transactions  "  or  "  Papers  "  of    the 
Pickwick  Club,  and  Tennyson's  Morte  d' Arthur 
shelters    itself,    in    the   same   way,    behind   the 
personahty  of  an  imaginary  writer.     There  is  a 
very  profound  significance  in  all  this,  and  you' 
find  a  trace  of  the  same  instinct  in  the  Greek 
Tragedies,  where  the  final  scene,  the  peripeteia, 
is  not  shown  on  the  stage,  but  described  by  a 
"  messenger."     The  fact  is  that  the  true  artist, 
so  far  from  being  the  imitator  of  life,  endures 
some  of  his  severest  struggles  in  endeavouring 
to  get  away  from  life,  and  until  he  can  do  this  he 


200  Hieroglyphics 

knows  that  his  labour  is  all  in  vain.  It  would  be 
amusing  to  trace  all  the  various  devices  which 
have  been  used  to  secure  this  effect  of  separa- 
tion, of  withdrawal  from  the  common  track  of 
common  things.  I  have  just  pointed  out  one, 
the  hiding  of  the  author,  as  it  were,  behind  a 
mask,  and  in  the  Greek  Play  the  analogous 
talking  of  what  has  happened  in  place  of  visibly 
showing  it;  but  there  must  be  many  more.  From 
this  instinct  I  imagine  arises  the  historical  novel 
in  all  its  forms ;  you  make  your  story  remote  by 
placing  it  far  back  in  time,  by  the  exhibition  of 
strange  dresses  and  unfamiliar  manners.  Or 
again,  you  may  get  virtually  the  same  effect  by 
using  the  remoteness  of  space,  by  playing  on  the 
theme  "  far,  far  away  "  which  really  calls  up  a 
very  similar  emotion  to  that  produced  by  the 
other  theme  of  "  long,  long  ago,"  or  "  once  on  a 
time,"  as  the  fairy  tale  has  it.  Briefly  we  may 
say  that  all  "  strangeness  "  of  incident,  or  plot, 
or  style  makes  for  this  one  end  ;  and  of  course 
you  see  that  all  this  is  only  the  repetition  of  our 
old  text  in  another  form.  It  is,  perhaps,  hardly 
necessary  to  give  the  caution  that,  on  the 
principle  of  corrwptio  optimi,  there  is  nothing 
more  melancholy  than  the  book  which  has  the 
body  of  fine  literature  without  the  soul,  which 
uses  literary  methods  without  understanding. 
You  needn't  ask  for  proofs  of  that  proposition  ; 


Hieroglyphics  201 

our  memories  are  aghast  with  recollections  of 
futile  "  historical  novels,"  of  the  terrific  school 
of  the  "  two  horsemen,"  and  every  Christmas 
brings  its  huge  budget  of  those  dreadful  "  boys' 
books,"  which  carry  commonplace  to  the  very 
ends  of  the  earth,  and  occasionally  penetrate  to 
the  stars.  And  in  style,  too,  what  can  be  more 
depressing  than  the  style  which  is  meant  to  be 
"  strange  "  and  is  only  flatulent  ?  In  many 
cases,  of  course,  such  books  as  I  have  alluded  to 
are  mere  survivals  of  tradition,  conventions  of 
bookmaking  which  bear  witness  to  the  fact  that 
pirates  and  treasure-hoards  were  once  symbols 
of  wonder ;  and  the  extravagances  of  style  are 
probably  to  be  accounted  for  in  the  same  way. 
At  some  remote  period  it  may,  possibly,  have 
been  effective  to  call  the  sun  "  the  glorious 
orb,"  and  even  now  some  minds  may  be  made  to 
realise  the  strangeness  of  great  flights  of  birds 
by  the  phrase  "  the  feathered  Zingari  of  the 
air  "  ;  but  if  one  is  a  little  sophisticated  one 
feels  the  pathos  and  the  futihty  of  such  efforts. 
The  writer  has  felt  and  experienced  the  wonder 
of  things — the  beauty  of  the  sun  and  the  hiero- 
glyphic mystery  of  the  figures  that  the  birds 
make  in  the  air — and  he  feels,  quite  rightly,  that 
to  describe  wonders  one  must  suggest  wonder 
by  words.  Unfortunately,  he  breaks  down  at 
this  point,  and  falls  back  on  unhappy  phrases 


202  Hieroglyphics 

that  give  the  very  opposite  impression  to  that 
which  he  wishes  to  excite.  Here  you  have  the 
whole  history  of  "  poetic  diction."  The  instinct 
is  in  itself  an  entirely  right  one,  and  I  need 
hardly  say  that  the  masters — those  who  have  the 
secret — can  use  archaic  forms,  obsolete  con- 
structions, conventional  phrases  even,  with 
miraculous  effect.  But  the  beginner  would  do 
well  to  be  wary  of  these  things,  and  to  turn  his 
face  resolutely  away  from  "  flowery  meads  "  and 
all  the  family  of  inversions.  How  is  one  to  know 
when  such  phrases  may  be  used  ?  If  I  could  give 
you  the  answer  to  that  question  I  should  be 
also  giving  you  the  secret  of  making  literature, 
and  from  all  our  talks  I  expect  you  have  gathered 
this  much  at  all  events — that  the  art  of  literature, 
with  all  the  arts,  is  quite  incommunicable. 
Many  kinds  of  artifice,  even,  are  unteachable — 
I  could  not  write  or  be  taught  to  write  one  of 
those  George  Eliot  novels  that  I  have  been 
abusing  with  such  hearty  good-will — but  art  is 
by  its  very  definition  quite  without  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  schools  and  the  realm  of  the  reasoning 
process,  since  art  is  a  miracle,  superior  to  the 
laws. 


PRINTED   BY 

WILLIAM    BRENDON   AND   SON,   LTD. 

PLYMOUTH 


s  book  is  DUE  on  thfi  '  ■^  •'t 
iai 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LI 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stanij; 


f^^'D 


ID., 


^ff\y 


iffn^ 


1?6P 

ma 


.    WL^m^  {1979 

MAY18198C 

Form  L9-Series  4939 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGION-. 


Atll 


AA    000  577  620    8 


9^J^ 


